eMusic » ZZ

Moby’s eMusic Picks

Michelangelo Matos — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 12:49:08 +0000

[To celebrate the release of his 11th studio album, Innocents, we invited Moby to take control of eMusic's editorial for a week. You can read our exclusive interview with him here. Moby asked us to interview Cold Specks as part of his takeover — you can read that here — and we also resurrected Ryan Reed's interview with the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne, who sings on Innocents. And below, he reveals his 10 favorite albums on eMusic. — Ed.]

The Best Of John Lee Hooker: Vol.1

John Lee Hooker
2004 | Tribute Sounds / Entertainment One Distribution

My mom is my biggest influence — which, in print, is probably the least cool thing anyone has ever said. When I was bored I would take her records and go through them. I must've been 13 or so when I first heard John Lee Hooker. There's some music that, when I first heard it, didn't make sense to me and years later made sense to me, but the first thing I... heard was "Boom Boom," and the immediate visceral appeal even made sense to me when I was 12 years old. Later, I started hearing blues in different circumstances and contexts, [and] I started appreciating the austerity of it.
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Greatest Hits

Neil Young
2004 | Reprise

I picked Greatest Hits because it would be really hard to pick one individual Neil Young album. Harvest, or — where would you even start? I read an interview with Neil Young, and he said that when he was compiling his Greatest Hits he didn't let his ego get in the way. He actually picked the songs that people wanted to hear. Some greatest-hits — and I'm guilty of this — you... tack on a few records that you hope people will listen to, even though they technically aren't hits. Whereas Neil Young's Greatest Hits, it really is just the most phenomenal collection of iconic, remarkable songs. His comfort with simplicity I find really inspiring; also that he writes very emotional music that almost always stops short of being too autobiographical. The songs are personal, but enigmatic at the same time.
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Bryter Layter

Nick Drake
2003 | ISLAND RECORDS

My first real good job was working in a record store called Johnny's — the counterculture store of Darien, Conneticut. One day I was working and [the owner] was playing Nick Drake. I fell in love, and he almost forced me to buy it — to take six dollars out of my paycheck and get my discount version of Bryter Layter. I became a Nick Drake evangelist, because at the time I... didn't know anyone who knew Nick Drake. It took quite a while — it wasn't until "Pink Moon" got used in that Volkswagen commercial that people became more aware of him. It made me happy, because he made so much remarkable music and it always was baffling to me [he] languished in obscurity. I like that he had a posthumous career.
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Greatest Hits: Donna Summer

Donna Summer
1998 | Island Def Jam

When I was nine or 10 years old I'd listen to Casey Kasem's Top 40 religiously. One of the highlights of my life professionally when I was on a panel and he was the moderator. Hearing my name said by Casey Kasem was just amazing. From nine, ten, I'd listen to Casey Kasem's [American] Top 40 — this would've been 1974-75, so it was Donna Summer and Kiss and Abba and Queen.... You couldn't turn on a radio in the mid 70's without hearing Donna Summer. "I Feel Love" is the greatest piece of electronic dance music ever made, hands down, bar none.

At [the L.A. restaurant] Soho House, I was having dinner, and someone I knew was at the table next to me. They said, "By the way Moby, this is Giorgio Moroder." I was like, "Really? How is this possible?" It's probably one of the best things about being a quasi-public figure — getting to meet your heroes.
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Suicide

Suicide
2013 | Mute

I bought it in 1980 as a cut-out — you remember cut-outs? — at Johnny's, the record store. At the time I was cutting lawns. The big ones would drive you insane, because it would take three or four hours; it's 90 degrees and you're getting stung by bugs. The whole time I was thinking, "When this woman gives me the $10, I'm going to go to Johnny's and by the cut-out... version of the Suicide album."

I used to go to CBGB all the time. New York in the late '70s and early '80s, checking IDs never happened. The drinking age was 18, and New York was just an amazing disaster. It never even dawned on us we were 15 and 16 going to clubs. I went to go see Depeche Mode at the Ritz, and that's the only time anyone ever checked my ID. I was 16 and the guy just looked at my ID and let me in. It was just such a lawless time. We'd go to CBs and get really drunk and see Bad Brains and whoever was playing.
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The Man-Machine (2009 Digital Remaster)

Kraftwerk
2009 | Astralwerks

Electronic music in the early and mid '70s — the phenomena of it meant that you were exposed to it more than you would imagine. Especially audiophiles, the guys who have these $5,000 stereos, loved Tangerine Dream and Jean-Michel Jarre, and Kraftwerk fit into that. If you would go over to someone's house and their dad would have this amazing stereo, so they'd buy electronic music just to showcase the stereo. I... would go to stereo stores and salivate over the Macintosh pre amps. But I was broke.

"Neon Lights" — the fact that it lets itself be so drawn out and pastoral and pretty, that really inspired me. Also, there was this recurring criticism of electronic music that it was cold and unemotional. I remember just being generally nonplussed because I would listen to something like "Neon Lights" that was so warm, so melodic, and so emotional, that when people would say that electronic music is cold, I was just baffled. I've never understood that criticism of it, that it lacks warmth or humanity.
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Miami

The Gun Club
2012 | Sympathy for the Record Industry / The Orchard

The way I heard albums back then was, my friends and I had this understanding about who was going to buy which album. One person would buy it and the rest of us would tape it. It was piracy based on necessity, because we were all broke. My friend Dave bought Miami. I remember when I heard early Gun Club I thought it was really fun, and then I heard Miami and... it had this emotional depth and breadth to it that the first album didn't have.
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Power, Corruption & Lies [Collector's Edition]

New Order
2008 | Rhino/Warner Bros.

It was one of those records where you'd look at the Peter Saville cover and listen to it and just knowing their history — not just the music was perfect, but the presentation, the history, the context. It's just perfect.

This [was] when I first started DJing. You couldn't DJ in 1984 and not have every [New Order] 12-inch: "Blue Monday" and "Confusion" and "Ceremony" and "Temptation." Most nights I'd play both of... those records at least twice, [at] a nightclub called the Beat in Port Chester, New York, that held 50 people. My first job was on a Monday night DJing from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., getting paid $25. New Order was one of those bands — almost everything they did was guaranteed to make people dance.
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Floating Into The Night

Julee Cruise
1989 | Reprise

What a perfect record — beautiful and non-ironic and disconcerting and strange and conventional all at the same time. I'd been an obsessive David Lynch fan since I first saw Eraserhead. I can't think of a filmmaker even remotely similar to him in terms of creativity and the uniqueness of his output. You didn't go to see a David Lynch movie because of the subject matter; you went because it was a... David Lynch movie. The Elephant Man and Blue Velvet are strong narrative movies, but you went because you wanted to spend time with David Lynch's creative vision. And when Twin Peaks came out of course every single person in the western world became justifiably obsessed with it.
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No Protection

Massive Attack
2004 | CAROLINE ASTRALWERKS - CAT

One of the things that I loved about dance music in the '80s into the '90s was its femininity and multiculturalism. I'd go out to nightclubs in '88 and '89 and listen to DJs like Larry Levan playing very feminine gay disco. As a straight white guy from the suburbs I found it really compelling and emancipating, in a way. Then, in the early '90s dance music became whiter and less feminine... and tougher. Sometimes that was great; sometimes tough-white-guy dance music sounded really cool. But I really missed disco femininity. What I really loved about Massive Attack was that they really channeled that early R&B, feminine, disco sensibility, those first two albums, especially. Massive Attack made really thoughtful, atmospheric, interesting, dance-inspired music. Especially the song "Protection," with Tracey Thorn — part of my criteria for evaluating a lot of music is what the musician has excluded. That song "Protection," there's no bass line. By not including that, it actually plays up the sparseness and vulnerability of the song.
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10 Hidden Gems from the Jimmy Webb Songbook

Peter Blackstock — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 13:00:49 +0000

If you know the songs of Jimmy Webb, chances are it’s because of Glen Campbell, whose string of city-titled Webb tunes in the late 1960s — “Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” — became American country-pop crossover classics. That’s just the tip of the iceberg among Webb-penned tracks that can be found in eMusic’s vaults, though. Beyond the dozens of versions of those three songs is a fascinating range of material that testifies to Webb’s status as one of popular music’s greatest living songwriters. On his new star-studded-duets album Still Within the Sound of My Voice, Webb went deep into his catalog to rescue a few forgotten numbers. Inspired by his efforts, we’ve gathered some others you may not have heard.

Zumpano, “Rosecrans Boulevard”

Look What the Rookie Did

Zumpano
Sub Pop Records

A.C. Newman's pre-New Pornographers band reached way back into the Webb archives on their 1995 Sub Pop debut. Originally done in 1967 by Johnny Rivers (who played a major role in Webb's early career), "Rosecrans Boulevard" is classic Webb unrequited romanticism, with a melody awash in catch-you-off-guard key changes and dramatic crescendos — clearly an influence on Newman's subsequent work.

Waylon Jennings, “If You See Me Getting Smaller”

Ol' Waylon

Waylon Jennings
2003 | RLG/BMG Heritage

It's largely unknown or forgotten that Waylon is the only artist who won a Grammy for recording Webb's polarizing magnum opus "MacArthur Park" (in 1969 with the Kimberlys). More lasting, though, is his take on this mid-'70s Webb confessional about retreating from the spotlight, which Jennings recorded at the peak of his career. It's telling that Webb drafted Waylon's best pal Willie Nelson for the version on Just Across the River, his... 2010 duets disc.
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Renee Fleming, “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”

Haunted Heart

Renée Fleming
2005 | Decca

Though no one ever charted a hit version of this exquisite ballad, it tends to summon major-league vocalists: Joe Cocker did it first in 1974, Linda Ronstadt revived it in 1982 and it turned up on a mega-selling Celtic Woman collection in 2010. But there's no topping operatic chanteuse Fleming for vocal star power, even if the crowning touch here is actually the presence of jazz greats Bill Frisell and Fred Hersch... on guitar and piano, respectively. (Webb and Cocker sing it together on Webb's Still Within The Sound Of My Voice duet album.)
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Iain Matthews, “Met Her on a Plane”

Journeys From Gospel Oak

Iain Matthews
Its About Music.com / The Orchard

Iain Matthews remained relevant to pop music after leaving legendary folk-rock ensemble Fairport Convention in part through applying the sweet clarity of his voice to songs by such rising early-'70s tunesmiths such as Tom Waits, Jesse Winchester and Mickey Newbury. He tuned in to Webb, too, plucking this obscure cut from Jimmy's 1971 album And So: On for his 1972 LP Journeys From Gospel Oak. If Webb's material hadn't already found a... perfect-for-AM-radio vocalist in Glen Campbell, Matthews might have produced a similar run of Webb-penned hits.
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Scud Mountain Boys, “Where’s the Playground, Susie”

The Early Year (Reissue)

Scud Mountain Boys
2007 | Ashmont Records / Redeye

Though this song reached No. 26 on the pop charts for Glen Campbell in 1969, it didn't imprint on the American consciousness like "Wichita Lineman" and "Galveston." It got a fresh airing in 1995 when Joe Pernice's band the Scud Mountain Boys recorded a haunting lo-fi version of the tune for their sophomore LP. Sub Pop later packaged that record with the band's debut into this twofer reissue, which also includes their... take on "Wichita Lineman."
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Richard Harris, “Paper Chase”

A Tramp Shining

Richard Harris
1993 | Geffen

It was, of course, British actor Richard Harris who immortalized Webb's "MacArthur Park," taking it to No. 2 on the charts in 1968. It was the highlight of Harris's LP A Tramp Shining, but Webb also wrote every other track on the album, and some of the lesser-known numbers are quite appealing without the bombast. "Paper Chase" may be the best, an instantly hummable little pop ditty (once you get past the... grandiose string intro).
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Fifth Dimension, “Pattern People”

Up, Up And Away

Fifth Dimension
2009 | Arista/Legacy

The title track to this album, "Up, Up And Away," was Webb's first big breakthrough, literally taking his music all the way to the moon (it was played in space by astronauts on the Apollo missions). But it's far from the only Webb song the Fifth Dimension recorded. Many of them were dripping with a late-'60s groovy hippie vibe, such as this counterculture barb tossed at cookie-cutter "Pattern People." The lyrics are... a gas in hindsight, yet it's pretty sophisticated stuff musically, with vocal layers, horn accents and a sharply delineated chorus.
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Alice Clark, “I Keep It Hid”

Alice Clark

Alice Clark
1972 | Mainstream Records / Audio Bee

R&B/soul renditions of this early-career Webb tune were recorded by Ray Charles, Margie Day and the (Diana Ross-less) Supremes, but it's the more obscure Alice Clark who knocks it out of the park on her self-titled 1972 debut. Producer Bob Shad had worked with the likes of Sarah Vaughan and Janis Joplin before issuing Clark's debut on his Mainstream Records label; how she never caught fire seems a mystery, especially given the... power and emotion of this recording.
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Declan, “The Last Unicorn”

Thank You

Declan
2007 | Lama Ani Records / BFM DIGITAL

A child singer was a good fit for this theme song from a children's movie, even if Irish sensation Declan Galbraith's 2005 version came more than two decades after The Last Unicorn was in theaters. Folk-rockers America did the film version, but Declan brings just the right touch of wide-eyed innocence to the yearning lyrics. And if he was a teen idol, well, he had a voice that warranted the attention.

Amy Grant, “If These Walls Could Speak”

Lead Me On 20th Anniversary Edition

Amy Grant
2008 | AMY GRANT / SPARROW

Shawn Colvin also recorded this song on her 1994 collection Cover Girl, but its finest reading came a few years earlier from Amy Grant on her 1987 album Lead Me On, as Grant was crossing over from contemporary Christian audiences to the pop mainstream. Her voice is ideally suited to the song's heartfelt message; Webb acknowledged that compatibility when he enlisted her to join him on his song "Adios" from his Still... Within The Sound Of My Voice duet album.
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10 Bands That Formed in High School

Adam Rathe — Thu, 05 Sep 2013 16:24:33 +0000

High-school musicians haven’t got it easy. Most never make it out of their parents’ garage or, even worse, out of marching band. But for a chosen few, the music they started making in high school has lead to staggering success and a place on the world stage. Somehow, in the midst of science projects, book reports and seemingly lethal games of dodge ball, some of the most notable musicians around found one another and formed groups that went on to become bigger than anyone could have imagined. So, forget geometry and diagramming sentences, a few chords and a steady beat might be the only skills worth picking up this year — they’ve worked well for these bands that formed during high school.

Genesis

Selling England By The Pound

Genesis
2007 | Rhino Atlantic

Formed in: 1967
The school:: Charterhouse School, Goldaming, U.K.
What they've said: "I hated it," Peter Gabriel has said of high school. "I think people that flourish in public schools are either good at sports, work, the arts or gregarious, and I was none of these. So I didn't feel I fit in."
High school clique: Above-it-all art students preparing elaborate conceptual pieces instead of studying for trig.

The Cure

Faith

The Cure
2004 | Rhino/Elektra

Formed in: 1976
The school:: St. Wilfrid's Catholic School, West Sussex, UK
What they've said: Cure frontman Robert Smith reportedly explained that an early incarnation of his band was called simply "the group," because "it was the only one at school so we didn't need a name." Later on, the band would be called Brat's Club, Malice and Easy Cure.
High school clique: Goth kids smoking cloves, discovering "Just Like Heaven," blue-black hair dye, unisex... eyeliner
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The Germs

GI

Germs
2008 | Rhino/Slash

Formed in: 1977
The school:: University High, Los Angeles, California
What they've said: "Mainly my reputation started in 10th or 11th grade. I just dyed my hair blue and lost all my friends in one day," late Germs front man Darby Crash is quoted as having said in the biography Lexicon Devil.
High school clique: Germs burns, acid-happy punks, smart-ass fake names

INXS

Full Moon, Dirty Hearts

INXS
2011 | Rhino Atlantic

Formed in: 1977
The school:: Davidson High School, New South Wales, Australia
What they've said: "I'm pleased that we've been able to build a career for ourselves, and not just have one big album out of the blue," Michael Hutchence said in 1991. "There's something intrinsically Australian about a bunch of brothers and school friends getting together as a band at a very young age."
High school clique: The long-hair-and-leather-jacket look, "New Sensation" as... a pep rally anthem
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Melvins

Everybody Loves Sausages

Melvins
2013 | Ipecac Recordings / The Orchard

Formed in: 1983
The school:: Montesano Jr.-Sr. High School, Montesano, Washington
What they've said: "I think everybody who goes to high school pretty much wants to burn the place down," frontman Buzz Osborne said.
High school clique: Wildly good musicians who play sludgier music than they have to and are morally opposed to haircuts

Radiohead

OK Computer

Radiohead
1997 | CAPITOL

Formed in: 1985
The school:: Abingdon School, Oxfordshire, UK
What they've said: "At Abingdon we'd rehearse, tape the rehearsal, listen to the tape of the rehearsal, [and] rehearse some more," guitarist Ed O'Brien has said. "Nobody liked us except us."
High school clique: Serious-beyond-their-years kids who might just be on to something

Green Day

Dookie

Green Day
1994 | Rhino

Formed in: 1987
The school:: Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt met in junior high, but it was Pinole Valley High School in Pinole, California, that Armstrong famously dropped out of to become a musician.
What they've said: "School is practice for the future, and practice makes perfect and nobody's perfect so why bother," Green Day drummer Tre Cool reportedly once quipped.
High school clique: Masturbation jokers

The Donnas

Spend The Night

The Donnas
2002 | Atlantic Records

Formed in: 1993
The school:: Jordan Middle School and Palo Alto High, Palo Alto, California
What they've said: "No more science, history/ English is just Greek to me/ I don't wanna know my score/ I don't wanna go to school no more," go the lyrics to "I Don't Wanna," off the band's 1997 self-titled debut album.
High school clique: Tough-as-nails all-girl bands, prom groups inspired by the Donnas' semiformal turn in the 1999 cult classic... Jawbreaker
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Screaming Females

Ugly

Screaming Females
2012 | Don Giovanni Records / Believe Digital

Formed in: 2005
The school:: Roselle Catholic, Roselle, New Jersey
What they've said: "Was I going to sob like this every morning? Would I have a nervous breakdown before I had even gotten my period? I had run out of options and the reality of my situation was agonizing," Marissa Paternoster has written of leaving public school for a uniform-happy Catholic academy.
High school clique: Bad-asses in uniform, Garden State DIY... types
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Iceage

New Brigade

Iceage
2011 | What's Your Rupture?

Formed in: 2008
The school: Various
What they've said: Singer-guitarist Elias Bender Rønnenfelt has said the band planned early tours around high school breaks and was once forced to cancel shows due to the possibility he wouldn't graduate. "I took some of my exams," he said of tests he'd failed, "but I hadn't been there, so I wasn't ready."
High school clique: Hooligans, the next gang of drop-outs to sell out... your local DIY venue
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Billy Bragg Picks His Favorite Albums

Andrew Perry — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 13:00:31 +0000

To celebrate Billy Bragg’s being honored for his Outstanding Contribution to Music at the Association of Independent Music awards 2013, we invited him to burrow through eMusic’s vast catalog and pick out some of his own favorites. What follows are Billy Bragg’s favorite records on eMusic, with some commentary from the man himself. He also nominated the soulful Tennessee singer/songwriter Valerie June for an interview and sat down with Andrew Perry for a long interview himself.

Pushin' Against A Stone

Valerie June
2013 | Concord Records

Snakily be-dreadlocked chanteuse raised in Memphis, Tennessee, brings the gospel/country/blues roots for 2013.

What an incredible record. I've been listening to it every day for the last two weeks. I bored the band with it on the way to Belgium. My understanding is, she's from Tennessee. I heard her playing the first track live on "Woman's Hour" [on BBC Radio 4] in the car, would you believe, and I was just like, I... must remember — Valerie June. They didn't have it in the local store, so when I got home — I don't often just download things immediately, but I did, 'cos I liked the bits I heard.

I think the playing's amazing, the singing is great, the songwriting is just impeccable — great hooks, with echoes of all sorts of different styles. I don't even know if she wrote all the songs herself, or if someone else helped her write them. But a really great record, my favorite record of the year so far! I'm hoping I'm gonna get the chance to see her play at the Electric Picnic in Ireland in a couple of weeks, because she's on the bill. Just amazing.
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The Show Goes On: Songs Of Ronnie Lane

Slim Chance
2012 | Fishpool Records / The Orchard

Erstwhile backing combo for Faces/Small Faces legend Ronnie Lane keep his memory alive with a brand-new, barnstorming live set of his tunes.

I was a huge Ronnie Lane fan. I still am. He's probably the only artist whose CD never left my car, and that's saying something — I had this best-of under the dashboard. I was a big fan of the Faces, but when he left I thought they lost something that... they never found again. He just managed to bring together something really special ¬— he takes me to that sweet place somewhere between English music and American country music.

His old band Slim Chance have just got back together recently, I saw them at Glastonbury, and they've put an album out. Obviously Ronnie had an iconic voice, which is kind of irreplaceable, but keeping those songs alive, they're doing us all a favor by doing that, so more power to them.

So this is something contemporary, they're still out there doing it, and the fact that it harks back to the famous travelling show that Ronnie did, the picture on the cover, no-one's ever really done that thing — taking rock 'n' roll round in a tent, just setting up and playing — without permission! It's a crazy hippie type thing to do, but I'd love to do it. They did it in some old diesel van — there's great stories in that Faces biography about him doing it in the '70s — totally crazy, but you have to do those kind of things.
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One True Vine

Mavis Staples
2013 | Anti/Epitaph

This year's second hook-up with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy for gospel-soul icon and sometime Staples Singer.

Since Mavis signed up with Anti-, she's made some great records. I'm a huge fan of The Staples Singers. Their album Soul Folk in Action — I mean, talk about folk-punk [as Bragg himself has been categorized], what a record that is. So to see her be reborn, initially working with Ry Cooder, now with Jeff Tweedy, I... think they've both been really sympathetic to what she does well. I did some shows with her in 2011, and she's still got the spark. She let me get up and sing [The Band's song] "The Weight" with her, in Los Angeles — how incredible is that? It blew my mind.
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Zoom

Rachid Taha
2013 | naïve / Naive

54-year-old Franco-Algerian maverick, this year blending North African raï with Western rock, funk and blues with typical garrulousness.

Rachid did an Arabic cover of "Rock the Casbah" [by the Clash], didn't he? I think I may have played with him at Glastonbury one time, when I was doing [Damon Albarn's] Africa Express. That thing tends to be a whole lot of people onstage all playing together, so we didn't hang out as such,... but he was a dude, an amazing guy. For someone from Algeria, he seemed to be pretty rock 'n' roll to me.
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Barbed Wire Blues

Wilko Johnson
1989 | Jungle Records / The Orchard

Proto-punk R&B guitar-mangler from Canvey Island, in mid-'80s, post-Dr Feelgood solo majesty.

He was down here [in Dorset] a couple of years ago; I took my son along to see him. It just blew his mind. Wilko was very important, coming from Essex, as I do. Much more important than that even, the Feelgoods were the British Ramones, in the sense that they woke everybody up to the possibility of going back to... basics. Wilko is our Johnny Ramone. He's the guy who says, "You can look like a dork, and still be cool." And for those of us that already looked like dorks, that was visionary!

I remember seeing him on the television, and it just did my head in, as a guitar player who at the time was being fed images of Peter Frampton as a guitar hero. You know? Wilko Johnson invented punk just by doing up the top button of his shirt — that's all he had to do, to invent it. He pointed us the way. I didn't ever see him in Canvey back in the day, sadly, but I did see him in Bridgeport last year. That was pretty good.
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Satan Is Real

Louvin Brothers
1996 | CAPITOL NASHVILLE

Ira Lonnie Loudermilk and Charlie Elzer Loudermilk, aka the Louvins, were one of country music's finest old-time duos — here, in fine, god-fearing mood in '59.

One of the greatest country records ever made, if only for the cover — it's a picture of them standing in front of the flaming coals of hell. I love the Louvins for their pure harmony style. They were very influential on the Everly Brothers, and Simon... & Garfunkel. Their songs are just so sad. Someone usually dies in the first verse, or the second, or sometimes they save it right until the end.

But for me it's that high lonesome sound that they've got, which still resonates. If you ever spend any time driving round Appalachia in the United States of America, the Louvin Brothers provide the ideal soundtrack. And there's some crazy Christian songs, too, like "I Love the Christian Life," as covered by the Byrds in Sweetheart Of The Rodeo — that's on here.
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Wassaic Way

Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion
2013 | Rte.8 Records / Redeye

Scion of the Guthrie folk dynasty strikes out in more alt-rockin' direction for 2013, in team-up with her hubby Johnny.

Sarah Lee I know, obviously, from working with the Guthrie family [on Bragg & Wilco's 1997 collection of unrecorded Woody songs, Mermaid Avenue]. She's a great songwriter as well, and this record, I think, really speaks for her talent as herself. She's moving away from being Woody Guthrie's granddaughter, and coming into her... own now, and I think that's really great to hear. Broadly, I guess it's Americana, and Woody's almost like the father of that, but she's getting her own spin on that now, getting an edge on it, moving out of the shadow of her parents' generation, which includes Arlo Guthrie of course, and into something altogether her own.
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Imidiwan: Companions

Tinariwen
2009 | World Village / The Orchard

Malian Afro-blues troupe, who wield electric guitars with the same defiance as they do AK-47s, in their sideline as political freedom fighters.

They're great. The rhythmic aspect to what they do is so hypnotic, I really, really like that. There's a tiny little bit of that griot playing in the first track on that Valerie June record — she does this weird little rhythm that made me think I must go back and... rediscover some of that stuff, like Tinariwen.
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Big Smash

Wreckless Eric
2007 | Stiff Records / The Orchard

The irrepressible Eric Goulden, wildcat songsmith of New Wave-era proto-indie Stiff Records, as-was in 1980.

A great album, one of my favorite releases on the old Stiff label. Wreckless Eric, again, is almost forgotten now in the pantheon of punk songwriters, and if remembered at all, it's usually for his first album, rather than this, which is his second. But this has got some great songs on it: "Broken Doll" is an amazing... song — I've always wanted to do a cover of it. In fact, Cliff Richard did a version once, I read somewhere. I don't think my flabber could be more ghasted than by the idea of Cliff covering Wreckless.

He's maybe best known for "Whole Wide World," off the first record — I hear my son playing that some nights on his guitar. I saw him play a few times, he was in vogue at Go! Discs [Bragg's old label] for a while, under his real name, Eric Goulden, so I knew him in that period. He was pretty hairy — pretty out there. He didn't have the same self-control, that knotted, chip-on-his-shoulder sensibility that early Elvis Costello had. He kind of let it go. He started out like that, but then he had a few too many drinks, and slept in his clothes. But we've all done that — I certainly have! He's still out there somewhere, still gigging.
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Electric Landlady

Kirsty MacColl
2012 | Union Square Music / The Orchard

Bawdy Anglo-Irish chanteuse, whose cover of Bragg's "A New England" charted high in '85. Tragically, she died at sea in 2000.

A brilliant, brilliant record. You have to understand, Kirsty was the real deal. She was an incredible songwriter, but also an amazing singer. When she makes a record that has both "Walking Down Madison" with Johnny [Marr] on it, and "My Affair," which sounds like something Bette Midler would record — there's... an amazing mind at work there. I know she wasn't a confident performer, she didn't like going out on the road, but when she did, it was amazing.

By the look of things here, it also has me and her dueting on a song called "Darling, Let's Have Another Baby." Hang onto your hat here — it was the B-side of a Johnny Moped single on Chiswick, back in the '70s. Kirsty and I both had our first records out on Chiswick, at the same time — me with Riff Raff [Billy's punk combo], and she was part of a group called the Drug Addix. Chiswick put three EPs out at the same time, and called it Suburban Rock 'n' Roll, all people from outside London. It was the Duke, Riff Raff and the Drug Addix.

Because she'd been on Chiswick, she was familiar with Johny Moped. We were on the Nicky Campbell Show, and we decided to have a go at "Darling Let's Have Another Baby," which is a great song. [Quoting lyric] "Let's make one soon, on our second honeymoon." [Calls it up on computer, song plays in background] Yeah, this is the stuff! [Quoting again] "Darling, if you ever leave me, I'll cry a million tears/ I'll go to the nearest boozer, and drink 10 pints of beer."

There's a Johnny Moped movie? A biopic, with Johnny Depp playing Johnny Moped? That would be so fucking great. Oh, it's a documentary. [A little disappointed.] Oh, OK.
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New Boots And Panties (Deluxe Edition)

Ian Dury
2007 | Demon / The Orchard

Utterly classic, none-more-English album of New Wave-era observations of East London, set to visionary, Clash-influencing blend of jazz/funk/reggae/blues.

Again, the "Essex man" thing. That really came totally out of leftfield. I'd always locked into Stiff via Elvis Costello, who was a hero of mine. But when you're coming out with stuff like "Billericay Dickie" and "Plaistow Patricia" and "Clever Trevor"…Yeah, it was a world I knew.

That's what punk was all about. It... brought rock 'n' roll home. It was away from the stadiums and the glitter. That shop he's standing outside of on the cover, we had shops like that in Barking — big shop fronts, with loads of hand-written signs. His love of place, I found that really inspirational. That's something I tried to connect with, both in my songwriting, but also in my book, The Progressive Patriot.

Are you familiar with the song, "England's Glory," that's on this Deluxe Edition? He originally wrote it for Max Wall [slapstick comedian]. It's a great song, amazing. It should be our national anthem, really.
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The 10 Best Replacement Songs (Not by the Replacements)

Michael Tedder — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 17:52:16 +0000

Later this month, the legendary underground rock icons/heart-rending poets/drunken screw-ups the Replacements will play their first shows since breaking up onstage in Chicago 22 years ago. (Well, Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson and some other dudes will play some Replacements songs, if you want to get technical about it.) Though the Replacements have not been an active recording or touring unit for more than two decades, their influence has never waned. Paul Westerberg was perhaps one of the most openhearted, emotionally fluent songwriters working in the 1980s college-rock scene, and this embarrassed him so much that he overcompensated by acting like a drunken lout. Plenty of artists have been inspired by the push and pull of Westerberg’s sensitive-brat worldview, and to celebrate the Replacements’ return, eMusic has gathered 10 of the best songs from their acolytes. All of these songs seem tough on the outside, even the ballads, but look closer and you’ll hear a strain of compassion, yearning and understated wit worthy of Saint Paul.

Against Me!, “Thrash Unreal”

New Wave

Against Me!
2007 | Sire/Warner Bros.

Against Me! singer/guitarist Laura Jane Grace has never been shy about her love for Minneapolis's finest. Against Me! has previously covered both "Bastards Of Young" and "Here Comes A Regular", and during their first New York set after Grace came out as transgendered, Against Me! brought Joan Jett on stage to cover "Androgynous." That's an impressive hat trick, but perhaps an even more impressive tribute is the New Wave single... "Thrash Unreal," which basically combines the wasted life chronicle of "Here Comes a Regular" with the ode to outsiders "Achin' to Be." The song tells the story of a lifelong alcoholic who misses the days of the "rebel yell," and in classic Westerberg fashion it finds empathy for its subject's problems without condescending or moralizing.
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Wilco, “Misunderstood”

Being There

Wilco
1996 | Reprise

During the tour for their double-album opus Being There, Wilco regularly covered early Replacements classic "Color Me Impressed," and it's obvious from one listen to "Misunderstood" that Jeff Tweedy had spent serious time studying his Hootenanny. It's all there: a winding, detailed narrative of a lost young man who feels stuck in his hometown, losing himself in booze, bad parties and self-pity, culminating in a cathartic, mocking outro that finds him... repeating "I want to thank you all/ for nothing at all" until he finally finds a moment of peace. Ever the A-plus student, Tweedy also slyly alludes to a few Replacement classics with the line "Take the guitar player for a ride/ 'cause he ain't never been satisfied."
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Jessica Lea Mayfield, “Our Hearts Are Wrong”

Tell Me

Jessica Lea Mayfield
2011 | Nonesuch

Paul Westerberg's songs are filled with characters who want the wrong things, even though they should know better. Ohio singer/songwriter Jessica Lea Mayfield can relate. On this standout song from her sophomore album Tell Me, Mayfield does her best to figure out if she is in love, or if she hates someone so passionately that she can't tell the difference. Over an ominous, twangy shuffle, she eventually realizes that it's a bit... of both, and she needs to leave well enough alone.
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Justin Townes Earle, “Someday I’ll Be Forgiven for This”

Midnight at the Movies

Justin Townes Earle
Bloodshot Records

Justin Townes Earle is the rebellious country outsider Steve Earle's kid, and his middle name is a tribute to the legendary Townes Van Zandt, but there's plenty of Westerberg in his songwriting DNA. On this piano-led barroom waltz from 2009's Midnight at the Movies (which, natch, also includes a cover of "Can't Hardly Wait"), Earle is a lovesick bastard who is mired in regret for breaking someone's heart, but he's able... to take the long view and realize that one day it won't hurt so much. Well, he hopes so, at least. And like Paul at his best, he's able to extend some sympathy for someone other than himself. It takes two people to ruin a good thing sometimes, but someday she'll be forgiven as well.
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Art Brut, “The Replacements”

Art Brut vs. Satan

Art Brut
2011 | Downtown Records / The Orchard

With "Alex Chilton," the Replacements both introduced and perfected the songwriting sub genre of "Tribute to a Songwriting Genius Most of the World Wasn't Fortunate Enough to Get." So clearly, they required their own tribute, and Art Brut were only happy to comply. On the English band's third album, Art Brut vs Satan, lead ranter Eddie Argos talks about always being let down by the bands he loves, and then beats himself... up that in his late 20s he's "only just found out about the Replacements." While it most have been agonizing for Eddie to realize how much better his teenage years would have been if he had a copy of Let It Be, it's better to come late to "Swingin' Party" than never arrive at all.
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Lucinda Williams, “Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings”

World Without Tears

Lucinda Williams
2003 | Lost Highway Records

Lucinda Williams has called Westerberg an influence on this song, telling Billboard, "He's just really good at combining literary lyrics — really good lyrics — set against a really cool, rock 'n' roll musical bed." This track from 2003's World Without Tears proves that she's really good at that as well, saluting some wannabe rebel with the Westerberg-worthy quip, "You've got a sense of humor/ You're a mystery/ I heard a... rumor/ You're making history."
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Green Day, “Why Do You Want Him?”

1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours

Green Day
2006 | Reprise

What made Paul Westerberg a cut above was his ability to occasionally walk away from the pity party and write about the troubles that other people were going through with as much care and detail as the lyrics about his own heartaches. This is a lesson that longtime fan Billie Joe Armstrong got right away. One of the first songs he ever wrote, "Why Do You Want Him?" (found on the compilation... 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours) is a plea for his mother to break up with a man Armstrong thought was unworthy of her. He sings his shockingly-insightful-for-a-teenager lyrics with enough youthful passion that it sounds like he's trying to make her value herself more through sheer force of will.
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Ryan Adams, “To Be Young (Is to Be Sad Is to Be High)”

Heartbreaker

Ryan Adams
2000 | Pax Am Records / TuneCore

Adams is such a 'Mats fan that he even got Tommy Stinson to play on Pneumonia, the final album by his band Whiskeytown. The lead off song from his classic solo debut Heartbreaker sees him channeling Westerberg's cocky swagger and big-brother humanity, telling a character (probably himself) that the best way to get over heartbreak is get back out there and live it up. Which will inevitably lead to even more heartbreak,... but Adams makes it sound like it's the only path worth taking.
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Swearin’, “Here to Hear”

Swearin'

Swearin'
2012 | Salinas Records / Believe Digital

This Philadelphia- and Brooklyn-based group features two songwriters, Allison Crutchfield and Kyle Gilbride, both of whom have a knack for documenting youthful confusion while still sounding like a prime mixtape of '80s and '90s left-of-the-dial favorites. This highlight from last year's self-titled debut finds Gilbride back home and utterly lost, unable to fit in anymore or convince himself that this is where he belongs. When he sings, "I second-guess it all the... time/ I'm losing my capacity to lie," it seems clear that he wishes he could make himself believe things will be OK, but he's gottten old enough to know better.
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Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Into the Great Wide Open”

Into The Great Wide Open

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
1991 | Geffen

The Replacements were infamous for stepping one foot into the mainstream, and then promptly shooting directly at said foot. So when they accepted an opening spot for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, they promptly did everything they could to antagonize Petty and the crowd. But no matter how bratty they acted, Petty seemed to be listening, and the line "rebel without a clue" from their 1989 single "I'll Be You" popped... up in Petty's 1992 single "Into The Great Wide Open." We're not saying that Petty ripped anyone off — just that he knew a great put down when he heard it, and knew it would fit right in with his tale of a young star who overdoses on his own hype.
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Elvis at Stax: The Cream of the Crop

Karen Schoemer — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 13:39:25 +0000

Elvis at Stax, the new three-disc collection of recordings made at the famed Memphis studio in 1973, is the box set for people who thought they didn’t need box sets anymore, a return to the sensibility that music doesn’t just float around the internet any old way it pleases — that there’s inherent value in having it organized and annotated by industry wonks and historians who know their subject inside and out. Leading off with a disc-and-a-half of outtakes then laying out every track from sessions recorded in July and December of ’73, the collection brings together material that was initially spread over multiple releases during Elvis’s lifetime, allowing nerds to newbies alike to ponder the emotional and vocal state of rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest singer just four years before his death his death in 1977.

Here are the collection’s 10 best tracks to get you started.

1. “I Got a Feelin’ in My Body (Take 1)” [disc 1, track 1]

Elvis struggled with stage fright, and his dwindling output over the final years of his life attests to his growing insecurity in the studio. Here, on the first take of the first night of the December sessions, that nervous energy spills out, but he gains confidence as the track moves along, practically rediscovering his prowess as a singer. Nowhere else in these sessions does he sound quite as raw and unguarded.

2. “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues” [disc 3, track 10]

If Elvis weren’t Elvis he could have been a soft-rock king, Gordon Lightfoot with life below the waist. This bad-boy ballad is perfect for a tender soul who reportedly went to pieces if a woman he liked wasn’t ready to move into Graceland on the first date.

3. “Promised Land (Take 4)” [disc 1, track 3]

Why didn’t Elvis sing more rock ‘n’ roll in the ’70s? He’s so relaxed inside Chuck Berry’s double-time rhythm, he’s practically picking his teeth. Berry wrote this one from prison in the early ’60s, mapping his imaginary way back out.

4. “Take Good Care of Her (Takes 1, 2, 3) [disc 2, track 4]

Real country gentlemen hold their heads up when a lady dumps them. Sonny James, Porter Wagoner and Dean Martin took cracks at this one first, but they can’t touch Elvis’s chivalrous yearning.

5. “It’s Diff’rent Now (Unfinished Recording)”

This curio betrays the erratic nature of the July sessions, with Elvis drifting in and out of focus as the song goes along. Ultimately the July sessions fell apart with far less in the can that RCA had hoped. Elvis stormed out on the fourth night because his personal microphones were missing.

6. “Mr. Songman” [disc 3, track 7]

This C-list country ditty is the essence of disposability, but the piano lick and smidgen of vocal naivete turn it into an unexpected charmer.

7. “If You Talk in Your Sleep” [disc 3, track 3]

Mixed with the Stax sessions’ old-fashioned pledges of eternal love are a few decidedly contemporary cheating songs — this one, in which the singer instructs his mistress not to blab about their affair while she’s out cold, takes the caddish cake.

8. “Find out What’s Happening (Takes 7-8)” [disc 1, track 2]

Elvis never quite summons the sass this kiss-off demands, but its combination of twang and funk still pushes it over the top. He gets testy with the background singers in the studio chatter at the beginning.

9. “I’ve Got a Thing About You Baby” [disc 2, track 13]

Tony Joe White, who wrote the concert fave “Polk Salad Annie,” was one of Elvis’s favorite songwriters, and legend has it he perked up when his handlers brought this cheerful paean to new love to the July sessions. The lyrics are pure come-on, but the lack of confidence in Elvis’s delivery makes it surprisingly poignant.

10. “There’s a Honky Tonk Angel (Who Will Take Me Back In)”

What country star doesn’t wring his hands over the choice between a long-suffering, fed-up wife and the trashy good-time gal waiting outside the dressing room? Elvis brings a depth of feeling the dried-up romance part of the song, leaving you rooting for the Priscillas of the world.

10 Essential Damaged Goods Albums

Stuart Turnbull — Thu, 08 Aug 2013 13:22:37 +0000

“Trends come and go, but we just get on with what we do and what we like,” says Ian Ballard, who founded Damaged Goods Records in 1988 and still runs the label from his East London home. To celebrate the label’s 25th anniversary, we asked its most prolific signing, Billy Childish, to pick his favorite 10 albums from its vaults.

Stuart Turnbull interviews Billy Childish about his own drive for music-making — read that here.

A Flame From The Fen - The Complete Fire Dept.

Fire Dept.
2010 | Damaged Goods / state51

Everything you need by this straight-up punk rock band formed in Cambridge, England in 1987.

"Absolute pop clarity, I'd call this. Fire Department were often on the same bill as my band Thee Headcoats, and they were one of the best groups I've ever seen. And nobody got them. They had a very unlikely fellow on the lead vocals, Neil Palmer, who looked like he'd stepped from behind a bank till. People didn't... get it because he was not 'cool'. But the world's version of cool isn't cool. It's shit. Neil was absolutely on-the-money — a fantastic vocalist and performer."
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All Our Forts Are With You

Wild Billy Chyldish & CTMF
2013 | Damaged Goods / state51

2013 album from Billy Childish, featuring his American wife, Julie Hamper, and friends including Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond of The KLF.

"This fulfils everything that I want in a group. The songs are written in the studio, they're basically one-takes; they sound like they've been made by a bunch of 15 year olds, and it's nice and effortless and carefree."
The Complete Bootlegs Vol I & II

Johnny Moped
2007 | Damaged Goods / state51

A hard-hitting 26-track mid-'70s monster by the band from Croydon, England, featuring Ray Burns (aka Captain Sensible).

"Johnny Moped were doing stuff with Captain Sensible pre-punk and this is effortless, proper rock 'n' roll. The Damned and the Mopeds were punks from a strictly rock 'n' roll background, without the glam bit. Which is where I come from. It's got free spirit and a lack of worry that I like."
In Blood

Billy Childish
2008 | Damaged Goods / state51

On which Mr Childish duets with East London's horse ridin', rockin' chanteuse. Billy and Holly strip the blues down to its raw bones.

"I wanted to include something with Holly here. In Blood was an idea I had to do an LP with one chord — E — and no add-ons. We recorded it over a couple of days. In Blood reflects a lot of my interest in blues music and the straightforwardness... of people like John Lee Hooker."
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Takin' The Piss

Armitage Shanks
1993 | Damaged Goods / state51

Debut LP from the punk enthusiasts named after a brand of lavatory pans. Produced by Billy Childish.

"Dick Scum, the guitarist of Armitage Shanks, drove for my band Thee Headcoats. He had a group, and wanted to do some recordings so I went along and produced an album with them. They were really big fans of early punk although they're quite a lot younger than me. They really had a feeling for... it and I wanted to help with that; they were such aficionados of the real thing that I wanted to be involved."
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Dreggredation

Wild Billy Childish
2012 | Damaged Goods Records / state51

Raw garage rock with a primeval edge as Billy hooks up with Neil Palmer of The Fire Dept., Nurse Julie and Wolf Howard.

"I'm a massive fan of Neil Palmer. We recorded three albums because we decided the world didn't need one, so let's do three. The songs are about pre-history and are a celebration of that Troggs pop ethic. It's what prog rock could have been if it was prog pop. We... invented prog pop."
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Beware the Ides of March

Thee Mighty Caesars
2013 | Damaged Goods / state51

British garage rock at its best: raw, immediate and unpolished. The band features Billy Childish, Bruce Brand and John Agnew.

"I like refining things ridiculously, and refining influences down to particular tracks. Thee Mighty Caesars are based on the tracks "From Home" and "Come Now" by The Troggs. I love three-piece bands, because you can't hide behind another guitarist. And that means you are continually vulnerable and it's always funny when someone makes... a mistake. That's why we don't rehearse as well — to increase the levity."
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In Tweed We Trust

Thee Headcoats
1996 | Damaged Goods / state51

The best album from the deerstalker wearing three-piece comprising of Billy Childish (guitar and vocals), Bruce Brand (drums) and Johnny Johnson (bass).

"Bruce, our drummer, did the graphic on that sleeve. I'd say Thee Headcoats are based on "Why Don't You Smile Now" by '60s band Downliners Sect, one of the greatest rock 'n' roll groups of all time. My god, the Downliners Sect's first few LPs — now that was British beat... music at its height. They had that Bo Diddley quality of being able to laugh about themselves while doing something seriously."
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Walking off the Map

Pete Molinari
2006 | Damaged Goods / state51

Debut album by the Chatham-born singer-songwriter that takes in soul, country, blues and rockabilly. Neat, uplifting pop from the Medway Delta.

"Pete was a local kid who was in some sort of Oasis band called Slipstream and then he started doing his own thing, standalone acoustic pieces. He wanted to do some recording and had already done some in a studio that was bit studio-ey. So I said, 'You should record it 'round... my house on the old Revox G36 in the kitchen, and I'll get the performances out of you. It'll be a performance-led record.' With the G36 there's no hiding and no hiding is the way that we work when we record, without a mixing desk in the way."
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The Complete and Utter

Singing Loins
2000 | Damaged Goods / state51

In their own words: "The Loins' songwriting is steeped in the British and European traditions of punk, folk, music hall, character, cabaret, melodrama and buffoonery. Singing tales of underdogs, suicides, circus freaks, the bereaved, frustrated and heart-broken, the washed up and mentally ill."

"My mate Chris Broderick was writing some poetry and I run a small press, Hangman Books. He came to me and asked me to help him publish his poetry. Then... he got a group together doing English folk and asked if I could record it, and The Complete & Utter was recorded in my old bathroom on a tape recorder. If people need to know how to get a record out, they know who to come to. But they don't necessarily return. Let it be noted. They don't necessarily return. Once they've stood squarely on my face, then they move on."
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Who to See at Lollapalooza 2013

eMusic Editorial Staff — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 20:41:47 +0000

Headed to Chicago but still not sure who you want to see in Grant Park? Fear not: We’ve boiled the brain-busting Lollapalooza schedule down to 15 essential sets.

Nine Inch Nails

The Downward Spiral

Nine Inch Nails
1994 | NOTHING

There's a sense in which this write-up feels ridiculous — recommending you go see Nine Inch Nails is a little like saying you ought to check out eating and breathing some time. Whether or not you like their music is irrelevant; Trent Reznor consistently delivers one of the best live shows in the business, with no exceptions. It's not just smoke and fire — the show is meticulously crafted to follow... a story arc, the songs moving from anger to despair to, believe it or not, redemption and healing. The visuals — which, make no mistake, are stunning — are just a complement. Make no mistake: Nine Inch Nails are a live act completely without equal. — J. Edward Keyes
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The Killers

Battle Born

The Killers
2012 | ISLAND RECORDS

Anyone aching for the unselfconscious pomposity of old-style rock 'n' roll: Look no further. For 12 years running the Killers have been delivering all-smiles feel-good cotton-candy-rush-n-roll and bringing gloriously, heartbreakingly sincere reminders that sometimes rock clichés actually became clichés because they are the greatest. Their show is pretty much all crescendo; they've been opening with "Mr. Brightside" lately, which is the kind of move you pull when you're cocky enough to believe... you've got two better hours in store. And the thing is, they do. Even their hokiest songs feel vital live, their cornball lyrics ringing incredibly true and hitting the softest spot in your heart every goddamn time. Spoiler alert: They usually end with "When You Were Young," which sounds more like "Born to Run" now — in the best possible way — than it ever has. One more spoiler alert: When they do play it, you will lose your shit. — JEK
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Kendrick Lamar

good kid, m.A.A.d city

Kendrick Lamar
2013 | Top Dawg / Aftermath / Interscope

Kendrick Lamar is a tiny stub of a man — standing onstage, he doesn't seem to come much past 5'4". But his quiet charisma widens out around him like a crop circle, and with his triumphant 2012 masterpiece good kid, m.A.A.d city still resonating in the air, he will likely arrive trailing clouds of rap-savior glory. Liquid, languorous songs like "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe" and "A.D.H.D." transform into shout-alongs when he's... onstage, and come prepared to rap along to every tongue-twisting verse: He usually gets heavy with the crowd participation. — Jayson Greene
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Eric Church

Chief

Eric Church
2011 | EMI RECORDS NASHVILLE

Eric Church's debut Sinners Like Me was the kind of sly alt-country classic that somehow sneaks into the mainstream once every few years, rollicking and dust-caked, every song ending either in a hug or at the bar (his "Two Pink Lines" remains one of the cleverest, funniest songs about a pregnancy scare ever written — twist ending and all). He foundered a bit on its follow-up, but his most recent album, 2011's... Chief, righted the ship, restoring his wise-guy persona and leavening its Jesus references with enough good-ol'-boy drankin' songs to keep you cockeyed 'til Tuesday. His live show is a big, boisterous party, his band spiking Church's songs with clever AC/DC quotes and ramping up the volume until the ground shakes. — JEK
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Matt & Kim

Lightning

Matt & Kim
2012 | FADER Label / The Orchard

Matt & Kim play punky electropop with huge, beaming choruses and feel-good lyrics about living every second like it's your last. In the last few years, the duo has risen from tiny club shows to a staple at every summer festival, and it's because they take on every live show with mile-wide grins and more energy than a 24-pack of Red Bull. Keyboardist/vocalist Matt Johnson is known for climbing up the side... of the stage, drummer Kim Schifino seems to stand on her drumset more than she plays it, and they both crowd surf. — Laura Leebove
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Father John Misty

Fear Fun

Father John Misty
2012 | Sub Pop Records

"Father John Misty" is actually Josh Tillman, the somber folkie and former Fleet Fox. Father John Misty is kind of Tillman's Tony Clifton persona; in case you are prone to conflating a musician with his music, Father John Misty is here to remind you that every song is a pose, and hey, also, your fly is open, thanks for coming and try the veal. Misty is a wisecracking, soused, Laurel Canyon singer/songwriter... scoundrel, prone to running naked in broad daylight and doing ayahuasca, and his 2012 record Fear Fun was a rollicking tumble in Harry Nilsson's bedraggled bathrobe. Live, he brings a sharp tongue, a Borscht Belt comedian's timing, and a practiced road warrior's worn charisma. Short version: If you're bored by Fleet Foxes, and indie-folk in general, go and be surprised by Father John Misty. — JG
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Jessie Ware

Devotion

Jessie Ware
2013 | Interscope/Cherrytree

In the video for breakout single "Wildest Moments," UK singer Jessie Ware appears, dressed in white, in front of a blank white backdrop and begins to sing. And that is pretty much all that happens. But the thing is, not much more needs to happen: The song itself is potent, big, "Paper Planes"-style bass drums and Ware's smoky alto preaching the gospel of two-way love as a path to self-actualization. It's like... that throughout Devotion, Ware's sneakily seductive debut that fuses the best parts of '90s R&B with current trends in UK dance. Throughout, the music is deliciously underplayed: cool blankets of synths, percussion that percolates like an 8-bit coffeepot and the occasional filigree of guitar. It makes for a new kind of high-tech lover's rock, cruising sleek and quiet as a sports car on a city street in the hours just before the sun comes up. Like all the best crushes, it sneaks up on you unexpectedly, and takes a firm, unwavering hold. — JEK
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Icona Pop

Iconic EP

Icona Pop
2012 | Big Beat Records/Atlantic

Here is Swedish duo Icona Pop summed up in six words: "I don't care! I love it!" That refrain — cribbed from last year's giddiest breakup song — perfectly captures Caroline Hjelt and Aino Jawo's exuberance and reckless abandon. Their songs are straight-up sugar shots, firework synths and hollered vocals and drum machines that wallop and squelch like medicine balls full of purple Kool-Aid. It's the sound of pure joy — a... nonstop barrage of leaping neon exclamation points. — JEK
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Ghost B.C.

Infestissumam

Ghost B.C.
2013 | Seven Four Entertainment / Republic

As soon as Ghost swarmed out of the depths of Linköping, Sweden, in 2010, the metal community came running. Not only was the band's underground blend of Mercyful Fate riffs and Blue Oyster Cult melodies instantly appealing, its evil shtick was too goofy to ignore. Fronted by Papa Emeritus II, a cryptic skull-faced vocalist in a pope costume, and backed by musicians who all went under the moniker "Nameless Ghoul," Ghost were... a Satanic Spinal Tap with crafty, infectious songs they clearly sold their souls for the ability to write unforgettable songs. Ghost's (who had to add "B.C." to the end of their name to avoid confusion with another Ghost) blatantly Satanic content is likely far too extreme for commercial radio, but for those who value strong, unique songs regardless of genre or lyrical content, they're more illuminating that 100 burning Bibles. — Jon Wiederhorn
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Charles Bradley

No Time for Dreaming

Charles Bradley
2011 | Daptone Records / The Orchard

It's time to put to bed, once and for all, Charles Bradley's oft-repeated origin story as a James Brown impersonator. The Screaming Eagle of Soul, The Original Black Swan and, most recently, The Victim of Love, Bradley is at this point a performer fully his own, possessing boundless charisma, gallons of passion and the kind of unstudied, unadulterated joy that an outdoor festival desperately needs. To stand in the presence of Charles... Bradley is to be basked in 100 percent pure love — so completely unsullied and unpolluted you feel yourself choking up before the first song ever hits the chorus. To put it another way: if James Brown were alive today, he'd be impersonating Charles. — JEK
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Heartless Bastards

Lianne La Havas

Is Your Love Big Enough?

Lianne La Havas
2012 | Nonesuch

While inspired by the more robust Who Is Jill Scott?, Lianne La Havas's promising debut Is Your Love Big Enough? ponders dating an older man (fluttering ditty "Age") and lobs bitter accusations of betrayal (downbeat duet "No Room for Doubt") over finger-picked, reverb-tinged guitar tinged. Over top, La Havas's vocals beckon like flickering candlelight. — Christina Lee

Baroness

MS MR

Secondhand Rapture

MS MR
2013 | Columbia

"We fear rejection, prize attention, crave affection/ Dream, dream, dream of perfection!" That's the refrain of "Salty Sweet," a song MS MR wrote about signing to a major label — but on their stellar debut, Secondhand Rapture, it would seem that the duo's fears didn't materialize. Not only do Lizzy Plapinger and Max Hershenow deliver an array of haunting, period-skipping pop gems: They strike a rare balance between maintaining their DIY background... and opening up their sound for a larger audience to enjoy. By meshing classic pop with more experimental sounds, they're making up their own rules, as well as borrowing from the playbooks of some of the bands Plapinger helped launch on her label Neon Gold, like Passion Pit, Gotye, Ellie Goulding and Icona Pop. MS MR's approach is similar — as they put it: "Pop rooted in an indie ethos." — Marissa G. Mueller
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15 Modern Jazz Covers of Modern Pop Tunes

Dave Sumner — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 17:22:21 +0000

Despite popular belief, jazz and pop music aren’t at odds. In the past — and still to this day — jazz musicians have been both contributing to and tackling compositions from the Great American Songbook: Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing” and “Take the A Train” remain in the realm of pop culture reference and John Coltrane, who is generally associated with an avant-garde approach to jazz, is also remembered for his lovely rendition of The Sound of Music‘s “My Favorite Things.”

That tradition continues to this day, with modern jazz musicians discovering little compositional diamonds in modern pop. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. While honoring the past and communicating in a shared, established language is a defining quality of jazz, so is the tendency to adopt a forward-thinking approach to music, seeking to expand that shared language in ways that are both experimental and innovative. Considering how many modern jazz artists have grown up listening to a variety of genres, it’s only natural that they’d turn to these influences as they develop their own personal sound. The songs in this list are just a few examples of that enduring phenomenon, and offer a glimpse of modern jazz musicians as they compile a new edition of standards — a new songbook for a new era.

Todd Clouser’s A Love Electric Covers Pearl Jam’s “Release”

Very few albums symbolized grunge’s revolt against the ’80s more than Pearl Jam’s Ten. Though the album is known for its boiling disillusionment, it’s also home to the ham-handed power ballad “Release,” which is on par with Journey at their most emotive, albeit shifted down a few octaves. On his excellent 20th Century Folk Selections, guitarist Todd Clouser burnishes this tune into a sonic diamond. Clouser and mates develop the original song’s melody into something more intricate, allowing trumpet, piano and guitar to intertwine, while giving ample room for a textured harmonization that makes the song seem so much bigger than the original — and likely closer to the raw emotional punch that Eddie Vedder envisioned.

Brad Mehldau Covers Sufjan Stevens’s “Holland”

On 2003′s Greetings From Michigan, indie-folk artist Sufjan Stevens gives an audio tour of his home state of Michigan, delivering melancholy ballads in a wispy voice and displaying his penchant for painting softly with a big brush. On his 2012 release Where Do You Start, pianist Brad Mehldau pinpoints the underlying tension in the song. With his longtime trio of bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard, he develops that song to dramatic effect without sacrificing the essential frailty that made the original so winning.

Taylor Haskins Covers Neil Young’s “Theme from Dead Man”

The soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch’s post-modern western Dead Man featured the guitar work of Neil Young, which highlighted both the movie’s bleakness as well as its surreal overtones. On the film’s theme song, Young served up incisively melodic lines, giving the music a sharp bite to go with its undeniable tunefulness. On Taylor Haskins’s 2010 release American Dream, he scoops up the melody on trumpet and lets it soar. Guitarist Ben Monder adds sharp edges along the periphery, while the rhythm section of bassist Ben Street and Jeff Hirshfield on drums fuses the trumpet and guitar into one singular force.

Vijay Iyer Covers Flying Lotus’s “Mmmhmm”

On 2010′s Cosmogramma, Flying Lotus and Thundercat’s “Mmmhmm” is a laid-back bit of electronic serenity, the kind of music that William Gibson’s robotic A.I.s would listen to after dropping synthetic ecstasy — soothing vocals, bright notes and a cadence that chugs along with the hypnotic stagger of a washing machine cycle. On 2012′s Accelerando, pianist Vijay Iyer’s trio imbues it with dark tones and an unsettling rhythmic patter. This is nothing new from Iyer, who is able to recognize, deconstruct and then rebuild melodies with a surgical precision. What makes his rendition of the Flying Lotus song so damn frightening is how close it is to the original. It’s like viewing its reflection on a clear but shimmering lake surface: The slight differences give the unnerving sense that “all is not as it should be.” At the outset, Iyer states the melody directly, then sets about tweaking it. His trio doesn’t abandon the circular motion of the original’s percussive approach, but the circles get tighter, bringing a palpable sense of urgency to the affair. Add to that Iyer’s frenetic bursts on piano, and the original’s mesmerizing presence becomes something far more wide-eyed.

Accelerando

Vijay Iyer Trio
2012 | ACT Music
Cosmogramma

Flying Lotus
Warp Records

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey Covers The Flaming Lips’ “The Spark That Bled”

There are a lot of comparisons that could be drawn between The Flaming Lips and Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. Both hail from Oklahoma but, more essentially, both outfits have blurred the lines between genres and discovered little crevices in between to incubate their music and allow it to grow. The Soft Bulletin was a new peak for the Lips, bringing woozy strings and rapturous melodies to their warped, psych-rock sound. The JFJO have been blending folk, rock and avant-garde with jazz for years, amassing an impressive discography that offers proof of their inventiveness. It seems natural that they’d be drawn to the Lips’ music. The Lips’ version of “The Spark That Bled” takes several thrilling changes in direction, going from a quiet bit of crooning to dramatic orchestration to some chipper alt-rock twang. It’s a massive song. JFJO strips it all down to a piano tune, showing the tiny beating heart at its center. They mirror the tempo changes and melodic developments of the original with accuracy, but where the original was rife with theatrical flair, JFJO susses out the blues from the composition, and lets that serve as the main course. Restrained when compared to the original, but no less evocative, and displays JFJO’s ability to reverse engineer a thickly produced song and reveal its essential parts.

The Bad Plus Covers Wilco’s “Radio Cure”

Wilco’s experimental mix of rock and country might seem like a difficult source of inspiration for a jazz artist, but the Bad Plus have made a name for themselves by tackling the songbooks of a disparate group of rockers, including Yes, Rush, Blondie and Nirvana. On Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco strayed from their alt-country roots, developing a singular voice that showcased their inventive nature and sense of experimentalism. On “Radio Cure,” Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy is accompanied by sporadic percussion, the gentle patter of guitar and slow-burning electronic effects. The Bad Plus pulls that combination apart, using the individual elements as bookends for their rendition. The trio of pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson, drummer Dave King and guest vocalist Wendy Lewis provide two views of this song. There are moments cloaked in bleakness and despair greater than the original, and then there are the moments where the sun breaks through and the band rises up, in rejuvenation and hopefulness. And where Wilco never lets on whether the story has a happy ending or a sad one, The Bad Plus’s rendition implies that both are true, and that one doesn’t preclude the other. It’s a nifty bit of emotional reconstruction.

For All I Care

The Bad Plus
2009 | Heads Up
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Wilco
2002 | Nonesuch/WBR

Dr. Lonnie Smith Covers Beck’s “Paper Tiger”

Previously known for magnetic tunes that combined stoned grooves with catchy melodies, Beck changed course on 2002′s Sea Change, favoring mostly arid acoustic guitar. On the profoundly moving “Paper Tiger,” Beck’s evocative vocals, and the song’s dramatic orchestral accompaniment, are the perfect expression of brokenhearted blues. The duo of veteran organist Dr. Lonnie Smith and guitarist Doug Munro turn the song on its head, offering up a soulful groove which is far more likely to elicit smiles and good cheer than the original. And it also displays that jazz musician’s knack for taking a strong melody in unexpected new directions.

Boogaloo To Beck - A Tribute

Lonnie Smith
2003 | Scufflin’ Records / The Orchard
Sea Change

Beck
2002 | Geffen

Donny McCaslin Covers Boards of Canada’s “Alpha & Omega”

On “Alpha & Omega,” from their 2007 record Geogaddi, the electronic outfit Boards of Canada knit a gentle blanket of shimmering harmonies. On his 2012 release Casting For Gravity, saxophonist Donny McCaslin stretched out in a number of directions, bulldozing genre walls along the way. Joined by Jason Lindner, Tim Lefebvre and Mark Guiliana, McCaslin uses the original’s electronics as the foundation from which to expand its rhythmic dynamics.

Casting For Gravity

Donny McCaslin
2012 | eOne Music / Entertainment One Distribution
Geogaddi

Boards Of Canada
2007 | Warp Records

Robert Glasper Covers Radiohead’s “Everything In Its Right Place”

Perhaps the gold standard in modern renditions, pianist Robert Glasper exploded onto the scene with his exemplary mash-up of Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage” and Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right Place,” balancing the joyfulness of the one with the tempered melancholia of the other. The seamless transitions between the two created all sorts of lovely tension and intrigue, and opened up the possibilities held within the Radiohead songbook. Found on Glasper’s 2007 release In My Element,, it’s just one highlight on an excellent album.

In My Element

Robert Glasper
2007 | BLUE NOTE
Kid A

Radiohead
2008 | CAPITOL

Brad Mehldau Covers Radiohead’s “Knives Out”

Yes, a second Brad Mehldau selection and, yes, another Radiohead song. This is not due to a lack of choices, but to represent two different trends. The first: aside from The Bad Plus, very few musicians have been as proactive in adapting modern rock tunes to a Jazz construct than Mehldau. The second: to illustrate that the Radiohead songbook has been adopted by modern jazz musicians with the same zeal as that of the Beatles. Jazz musicians are endlessly finding aspects of Radiohead tunes that they can sink their teeth into and transform into something even new and exciting. On Mehldau’s rendition of “Knives Out,” he adopts Radiohead’s shuffling cadence and bubbly persona as the starting point, but from there, begins exploring the possibilities expressed by the original statement of melody, and imbues the tune with a thrilling aspect not evidenced in the original’s moody disposition.

Day Is Done

Brad Mehldau Trio
2005 | Nonesuch
Amnesiac

Radiohead
2003 | CAPITOL

Next Collective Covers Drake’s “Marvin’s Room”

On “Marvin’s Room,” rapper Drake delivers a mix of heartbreak and hedonism. Explaining to an ex how badly he needs her by bemoaning his overindulgence in drink, women and parties since she left him shows a side of loneliness that’s characterized by a kind of fumbling vulnerability. Trumpeter Christian Scott evokes that same vulnerability with a restrained tone, reflecting the song’s fragile nature. The Next Collective’s Cover Art imbues that same spirit into a variety of tunes, from artists including Jay-Z, Pearl Jam, Frank Ocean and Bon Iver.

Cover Art

NEXT Collective
2013 | Concord Jazz
Take Care

Drake
2012 | Cash Money Records/Young Money Ent./Universal Rec.

Peggy Lee Band Covers Mary Margaret O’Hara’s “You Will Be Loved Again”

As a solo performer, the recording career of Mary Margaret O’Hara never quite took off, though her distinct vocal delivery earned her invitations to collaborate with a disparate group of artists, including Neko Case, Bruce Cockburn, Morrissey and the Tindersticks. Her songwriting skills also drew plenty of attention. On her debut Miss America, O’Hara offers up a lilting, sparse rendition of her song “You Will Be Loved Again,” made famous later by the Cowboy Junkies on their 1991 album The Caution Horses, and later ending up in the lap of avant-garde cellist Peggy Lee, on her band’s outstanding 2012 release Invitation. Lee, who has a wonderful talent for transitioning between statements of sharp dissonance and those of enthralling melodicism, sticks mostly to the latter on this rendition, her Band providing a depth of harmonies and an ebullience not found on previous versions.

Invitation

The Peggy Lee Band
2012 | Drip Audio / The Orchard
Miss America

Mary Margaret O'Hara
2010 | Mary Margaret O'Hara / CD Baby

Alex Guilbert Trio Covers The Shins’ “New Slang”

With their almost supernatural talent for crafting catchy melodies, the Shins routinely deliver upbeat, cheerful-sounding music that’s equally sweet and sardonic. On their rendition of 2001′s “New Slang,” the Alex Guilbert Trio doesn’t do much to change the formula, but they do ramp up the cheerfulness. Aside from it simply being a nifty cover of a nifty song, Guilbert’s trio illuminates just how much the music of the Shins and Vince Guaraldi have in common, if you just add a jaunty rhythm and some jazz piano. I dare you to listen to Guilbert’s version and not imagine Snoopy dancing joyfully while Schroeder hunches over his piano.

Marcin Wasilewski Trio Covers Prince’s “Diamond and Pearls”

Marcin Wasilewski Trio’s 2008 release January fit right in with the quiet serenity of a typical ECM Records release, except for the fact that it was anything but typical. Pianist Wasilewski had an illusionist’s touch on the melody, giving wispy hints at it like fragmentary visions within a thick drifting fog, resulting in quiet music that gently rouses the listener from a state of wakefulness rather than drives them to it. On the title track to Prince’s New Power Generation’s 1991 release, Wasilewski eschews the brightly polished notes and shiny embellishments of Prince’s original, and instead uses the melody to coax the listener to follow along as he develops it into something more complex, presented with the patience of a slowly moving river.

January

Marcin Wasilewski Trio
2008 | ECM
Diamonds And Pearls

Prince & The New Power Generation
2009 | Warner Bros.

Madeleine Peyroux Covers Elliott Smith’s “Between the Bars”

On her 2004 release Careless Love, vocalist Madeleine Peyroux takes Elliot Smith’s Either/Or song “Between the Bars” and transmutes it from a light tune thick with depression and forewarning into a lullaby meant to soothe and comfort and make all the worries disappear. Smith’s vocals have always been compelling, with his voice soothing in its own right, kept up at a higher register and delivered in the gentlest way. Peyroux keeps things gentle, but by utilizing a more expansive vocal range, is able to break through the predisposition to sadness of the original and instill a more hopeful kind of blues, the kind one can drift off to, into a night of sweet dreams.

Careless Love

Madeleine Peyroux
2010 | New Rounder
Either/Or

Elliott Smith
2009 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

Hidden Treasures 2013

eMusic Editorial Staff — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 12:00:21 +0000

Every year, hardcore music fans wrestle with the same wonderful problem: There are too many records. Even if we listened to nothing but new records, non-stop, the numbers just don’t add up; we’re going to miss something, it’s certain, something strange and special. But what? What are we missing?

We at eMusic know this exquisite pain better than anyone; the question “What are we missing?” keeps us up nights. Our Hidden Treasures feature is a partial answer. The records in this list span genres, from vintage soul to frozen Gothic pop; from death-obsessed classical song cycles to sloppy garage rock; from chamber music to churning doom metal. Some of these records were overshadowed by higher-profile releases in the same style; some are on labels that never get the attention they deserve. Some of these records are simply damned weird. They all caught our ears and hearts, however, for one reason or another, and we think they’ll do the same to you.

Bleak Visions

Lang: Death Speaks

David Lang
Cantaloupe Music

First, I feel it's important to say that, as of this writing, David Lang is nowhere near death. I see him walking through the neighborhood from time to time and he is his usual cheery, deadpan self. And yet the Bang on A Can co-founder has produced an incandescent string of pieces in recent years focused exclusively on death and dying. His Pulitzer Prize-winning Little Match Girl Passion gravely watches a poor... young girl freeze to death as passersby ignore her. His yet-to-be-recorded Love Fail takes an oblique look at the fatal love affair between Tristan and Isolde. His haunting, drifting Salle des Departs (recorded here under the title "Depart") was written for a hospital morgue. And then there's Death Speaks, a five-movement work which takes up most of this recording. Here, death is not an event, but a figure, like something out of an engraving by Albrecht Dürer. But unlike the American folk song "O Death," in which Death is a scary, implacable foe — the singer asks, "oh Death, won't you pass me over another year" — Lang has assembled a text in which Death is addressing us, with a message that is ultimately reassuring, and comforting.

The text is built around the many and varied instances in the songs of Franz Schubert in which the figure of Death speaks. The music, as in the other death-themed works named above, has a transparent texture that sets off and subtly colors those texts, and the voice delivering it. That voice belongs to Shara Worden, one of the current breed of musicians who move fluidly between the worlds of classical music and indie rock. While still leading her own band, My Brightest Diamond, Worden has become the go-to voice for the so-called "indie classical" crowd. The rest of the ensemble here is equally remarkable: Bryce Dessner, one of the twin electric guitarists from the popular rock band The National, and a fine composer himself; Owen Pallett, the violinist, vocalist and composer who formerly recorded as Final Fantasy; and Nico Muhly, the in-demand composer and keyboardist whose works range from choral to electronic. With essentially an all-star band, Lang has chosen to write music which is not conventionally virtuosic, relying instead of the quartet's musicality and precision. The results are quietly stunning. Highlights include the gentle, chiming minimalism of part 1, "You Will Return"; the resonant percussive use of the piano's bass end in part 2, "I Hear You"; the deft, rhythmic use of the violin in part 3, "Mist Is Rising"; and the lovely duet that blossoms in part 5, "I Am Walking."

After Death Speaks, the album invites you to relax in the dark-hued but warm ambience of "Depart," for chorus and strings. Probably best not to think too much of the French morgue for which it was written.
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Meir

Kvelertak
2013 | Roadrunner Records

Metal typically exists in a kind of "either/or" dichotomy: either bands are grinding and infernal or they're triumphant and anthemic. The Norwegian group Kvelertak is strictly "both/and." Their scorching second record Meir pairs the bludgeoning brutality of bands like Cannibal Corpse Rotting Christ with the kind of sugary hookiness typically found on an album by Andrew W.K. "Manelyst" is the perfect example: It opens with a barrage of barnstorming chords, a terrifying... asteroid shower of sound, before cruising up into a refrain that's practically singable, sounding like something from the Rocket From the Tombs catalog, if someone set vocalist John Reis on fire. "Burane Brenn" opens full-hurtle, frontman Erlend Hjelvik's wrecked-larynx howls offset by a holler-along soccer-anthem chorus. Kvelertak ride AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" right to its fiery end, and stage a never-ending kegger amid the flames.
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Excavation

The Haxan Cloak
2013 | Tri Angle Records / SC Distribution

It may be glib to assume that London-based producer Bobby Krlic dwells exclusively on the dark side, but given the evidence it's hardly unreasonable. His alias references a 1922 Scandinavian docudrama about witchcraft and inquisition, and his 2011 self-titled debut album aligned him with avant-black-metal/doom acts like Mayhem and Sunn O))). And the sleeve of his gloomily titled follow-up depicts a single length of rope coiled into a noose.

However, The Haxan Cloak's... thrillingly dark and chilly aesthetic goes far deeper than the kind of parent-bothering occult primer these details might suggest. There are echoes of Burial's cavernous dub and Demdike Stare's haunted techno in Excavation, but its magnificently maleficent, post-dubstep soundscapes have more in common with musique concrete, Expressionist cinema soundtracks and medieval monastic cantos than so-called witch house or drone metal.

Krlic's sounds are again rooted in acoustics (cello, violin, guitar, vocals) and field recordings, but this time they've been heavily processed — magnified, stretched, dissembled, reconstituted and rearranged — to produce nine micro-symphonies of stark beauty and extraordinary menace. Whether suggesting the dull throb of an old nuclear power plant, the spooked echo inside an abandoned iron foundry or the howl of an Arctic wind at a remote scientific station, they evoke a compressed anxiety that seeps into every note, causing the likes of "Dieu" to heave and quiver before it dies away and underlining the fact that despite its title, epic closer "The Drop" is concerned with something rather more ominous than build-and-break patterns.
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Abandon

Pharmakon
2013 | Sacred Bones Records / S.C. Distribution

Pharmakon is noise artist Margaret Chardiet, but you'd be forgiven for thinking it was some infernal ghoul. Abandon opens with a scream, and then plunges to unholy depths, full of icepick electronics, horrifying turbine wooshes and suffocating layers of static. It makes Swans sound like The Byrds.
A Breathtaking Trip to That Otherside

Alexander Spit
2013 | Decon

Alexander Spit's bleak, baleful Breathtaking Trip to That Otherside is not good-times music. Spit is from California, but his dank, druggy rap music feels allergic to sunshine. Spit produced the entire album, and his sticky, bleary sound owes more to Dilla and RZA. Everything seems to move through a thick film, including Spit's raps, which gob up into bits of blacklit surrealism about Roswell and chemtrails and unspool into long spleen-venting rants.... If you've ever sat, stoned, in an apartment during a blazingly hot day with the blinds drawn, Breathtaking Trip will feel clammily familiar.
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Vexovoid

Portal
2013 | Profound Lore / Revolver

Nirvana once wrote a song called "Endless, Nameless." Take a look at this picture of Portal's lead vocalist, and then submit to the swirling, backed-up churn of "Orbmorphia," from the Australian death metal band's fourth album Vexovoid, and you may find yourself with an entirely new appreciation of what those two words can mean.

Portal, as a band, is all texture, no melody. But they have mastered so many different textures... that you never think to yearn for melody. The down-tuned guitars, gurgling beneath the ever-shifting blastbeats of the drums, bring to mind all kinds of things, none of them musical: the alarming suck of wet mud when you walk in loose boots, the sounds old motorcycle engines make. The album title evokes a zone of confusion, a place where you can't get your bearings and the ground is constantly shifting. Exactly.
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Arriving Angels

Helen Money
2013 | Profound Lore / Revolver

Play any of the songs on the harrowing third record by Alison Chesley — who records as Helen Money — on electric guitar, and you'd have one of the most brutal, unnerving metal records of the year. But play them as she does on cello, and — well, you still have one of the most brutal, unnerving metal records of the year. Much of this comes from Chesley's command of dynamic. Aptly-titled... album-opener "Upsetter" starts with a low thrum that skitters forward like a tarantula before erupting into slasher-film goring, Chesley's instrument so distortion-caked it sounds like a rotary saw. She's joined by Neurosis drummer Jason Roeder on "Beautiful Friends," which progresses from seasick lurch to undead horse stampede, growing more violent and insistent as it goes on. It's a snarling, suffocating record, and by the time you get to the avalanche that concludes "Radio Recorders," it's clear the angels of the title aren't coming down from the sky, but up from below, horns gleaming, eyes yellow as old bones.
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Obsidian Spectre

Crosss
2013 | Telephone Explosion / The Orchard

In the chilling video for CROSSS's "Bones Brigade", a figure in an ominous black cloak kneels motionless on a beach, staring blankly off into the grey sky, as if in a trance. He remains like that, stock still, hypnotized, for a full three minutes and 30 seconds, his motionlessness becoming more sickeningly unsettling the longer it lasts. Finally, at the end of the video, he bows — as if in supplication... to some god or spirit or eerie form that only he can see. He straightens, and the video cuts to black. That turns out to be a handy encapsulation of the Halifax group's aesthetic: slow-moving, hypnotic and deeply, deeply creepy. Sounding something like Thee Oh Sees slowed down to about 2 RPM, the group tops grimy, repetitive chord patterns with wicked-warlock sneering, making for a final product that feels invested with prime '70s sorcery rock black magick. "Smoke" warns, "Look into your mind's eye/ don't forget to not let your guard down" as guitars churn and boil like the steaming liquid in a witch's cauldron. "Old Sound" draws its dark strength from its continual, gooseflesh-raising dives from major to minor key. Throughout, its members acquit themselves as if they've all just done kegstands with the blood of Kali Ma — dead-eyed, dutiful, and wearing sickening grimaces.
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Lost Mixtape Gems

Out of View

The History Of Apple Pie
Marshall Teller Records

On their debut album Out of View, London quintet The History of Apple Pie blend the most precious of indie-pop impulses with the messiest squalling noise-rock has to offer. Vocalist Stephanie Min's feathery vocals float high in the mix, leaving her teen-romance lyrics ("We're having so much fun in the light of the sun/ You're so cool") faintly discernible above the thick clouds of My Bloody Valentine-style glide guitar that threaten to... overwhelm them. It's that constant give-and-take between pop and art-rock chaos that keeps Out of View interesting: A gruff chord or two always cuts the cotton candy at just the right moment, like when the full-on breakdown interrupts the strawberry lemonade-flavored workout "I Want More." On "Mallory," the daydreaming verses and the yearning melody are tossed about by an underlayer of sneering riffs and distorted noise. No one side ever wins out over the other for long and the seesawing can give you a powerful sugar buzz.
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Cruise Your Illusion

Milk Music
2013 | Fat Possum Records

On Cruise Your Illusion, the first proper full-length from Olympia, Washington's Milk Music, the quartet wedges itself somewhere within the SST Records-Neil Young-Wipers universe, pitting sweat-stained, heavy hardcore punk against indelible melodies and endless sincerity. Since their early output, a 2009 demo cassette and a 12-inch in 2010, the band has turned their DIY determination into full-fledged ambition, and the songs on Cruise are as honest and spiritual as they are messy... and loud. On "Lacey's Secret," Alex Coxen's shouting, imperfect voice cuts through the instrumental heap with lines that that scan endearingly like poetry in a rest-stop bathroom: "You got to get all you can here/ when you're burning every night".

The songs on Cruise Your Illusion bask in youthful charm. "…And although the sun sets heavy on the dreamer/ You can feed your pain to the song," Coxens sings on "No, Nothing, My Shelter" as the band rips into the overdriven wail of "Coyote Road" before running amok on "I've Got A Wild Feeling," a populist manifesto that might as well be the band's anthem. When Milk Music started out, their songs were loud, fast and full of Big Muff. And while the sound is still bruising on their debut, they've found a larger scope and a deeper message. On "Cruising With God" Coxen invites the listener into the band's inner sanctum: "They all love our songs/ But even with the music on/ Baby you've got it all wrong/ You haven't danced in so long."
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Sock it to Me

Colleen Green
2013 | Hardly Art / Sub Pop Records

Colleen Green writes simple songs about simple things and records them as simply as possible. The first song on the irresistible Sock it to Me is basically just Green singing, "Oh yeah, uh-huh, oh God, I really love my boyfriend," and the lazer-light dollar-store Elastica song "You're So Cool" builds to an equally straightforward refrain: "You're so cool, how do you do it? You act like there is nothing to it." Her... logo is a stick-figure drawing of herself that looks not entirely unlike Fido Dido's long-lost sister, and her music is defiantly, joyously basic: just Green's distorted guitar, pouting voice and a Goodwill Store drum machine.

But lean closer in and the images start to distort. Green opens the provocatively-titled "Every Boy Wants a Normal Girl" by singing, "Sometimes I wish I was a normal girl," and then follows it with the height of abnormality: "Like the ones on TV, like the ones in the movies." The drowsy "Darkest Eyes" scans quickly as plainspoken puppy love, with Green celebrating her true love's eyes and contemplating how to retain his affections. And what's her solution? "There's no better way to keep appearances preserved/ than a razor to the optic nerve." And then you skip back to that first song, the one where she's singing about loving her boyfriend, and catch what she says near the ending: "When he tells me that he loves me, I lose the air from my lungs/ his love has finally killed me." Sock it to Me is strychnine-laced Strawberry Fanta.
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Mozes And The Firstborn

Mozes And The Firstborn
2013 | Mozes And The Firstborn / The Orchard

Anyone looking for a 21st-century analog to Weezer's "El Scorcho" should start with "I Got Skills" from the debut album by the Belgian group Mozes & the Firstborn. It's got a similarly motley, gang-hollered chorus, that same nerdish braggadocio ("I got skills to make it through your doorway") and a shambling, thrown-together aesthetic that is charming in spite of itself. The rest of the record pinballs between that same kind of... Jr. High sheepishness — "Skinny Girl" is what Mellow Gold might have sounded like if Beck was a teenager when he recorded it — and genuine star swagger. "Peter Jr." opens with an instant-classic rock couplet — "The longer you work here/ the less you get paid" — before sailing straight into the kind of cruising melodicism that characterizes the best Brian Jonestown Massacre songs (its cocky stride singlehandedly earns the group the right to own this coat) Mozes and the Firstborn are teenage panic and grown-up confidence all at once.
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Paper Moon

Georgiana Starlington
2013 | Hozac / Revolver

As K-Holes, Jack and Julie Hines kick up an unholy racket. Their work as Georgiana Starlington is different in sound, but just as grim in feel. Their dusky, country-influenced songs foreground their dazed, trancelike vocals as they glide over arid guitar like phantoms across the prairie at midnight.
Ex-Cult

Ex-Cult
2012 | Goner / Revolver

Boasting the same feral ferocity as '70s US post-punkers like Rocket From the Tombs and Pere Ubu, Ex-Cult (nee Sex Cult) solder clambering riffs to half-spoken, half-hollered vocals and drench the resulting songs in enough echo to make them sound almost alien. Much murkier and moodier than the music of their producer Ty Segall, Ex-Cult seethe and stalk where Segall storms right in. "Shade of Red" circles and circles, guitars humming like... old Cessnas looking for a place to land. "On Film" is doomier — its downcast bassline could have been lifted from Unknown Pleasures, its howled chorus coming off like some dark warning from a fortune teller. Throughout it sounds both ragged and well-aged — like a relic from an earlier era, recently unearthed. That they are both new and still active is to our great fortune.
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Ultramarine

Young Galaxy
2013 | Paper Bag Records / The Orchard

On their fourth LP, Young Galaxy go big, trading woozy, lo-fi-leaning dreampop for busy, dancefloor-ready electropop hits. They returned to producer Dan Lissvik, who worked on 2011's Shapeshifting, but this time the group traveled from Canada to Lissvik's studio in Sweden instead of sending their unfinished recordings overseas. The result is slick, cinematic and cohesive: There are disco influences ("Out the Gate Backwards"), tropical beats ("Fall For You"), and glorious pop anthems... ("Pretty Boy," "Fever"). In losing all hints of the haziness that masks their earlier releases, Young Galaxy simultaneously shed the Slowdive comparisons and make their best record yet.
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Peach Kelli Pop

Peach Kelli Pop
2013 | Burger Records / Redeye

Like a lollipop caught in a lint filter, Peach Kelli Pop nestles sticky sweetness beneath layers of cottony fuzz. The group, fronted and more or less embodied by White Wires' Allie Hanlon, takes their name from a Redd Kross song, and in many ways, they're that group's cheaper, sunnier analog. Both bands have a fondness for immediately-memorable hooks and piles of guitar, but Peach Kelli Pop seems to be constantly operating in... fast-forward. "Panchito Blues II" sounds like the Shangri-La's trying to outrun The Monkees, and "Julie Oulie" is floor-filler at a jackrabbit sock hop. By the time your brain has caught up you're ready to savor the sweetness, the next song is half over.
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Ready For Boredom

Bed Wettin' Bad Boys
R.I.P. SOCIETY

Australia's Bed Wettin' Bad Boys are basically a drunker version of The Faces, a bunch of hooligans getting shitty on Foster's then stumbling over to their guitars, cranking the amps and seeing what happens. Their live shows are notoriously sloppy (and, depending on whom you talk to, hilarious or infuriating) — bend members swap instruments, goof off interminably between songs and pound beer after beer after beer.

We're spared all of that on... the amazingly-titled Ready for Boredom, skipping instead right to the busted Mustang riffing and the blown-throat vocals. "Sally" is to The Rolling Stones "Happy" what Turkish Star Wars is to regular Star Wars: It has a lot of the same component parts — a blues lick deep-fried in axle grease, a somersaulting two-note hook — but is decidedly lower-budget and flaunts its inattention to detail. Their closest US analog is probably The Men — both bands mine classic rock for its junkiest spare parts — but the Bad Boys are sloppier and soggier still. The glistening album-closer "Keep it From You" is the closest they get to actual sentiment, but Nic Warnock's heartsick lyrics sound like they're coming from the business end of a drunk dial. He may not remember what he said in the morning, but he sounds like he means it in the moment. And isn't that all that matters?
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White Orchid

French Films
2013 | GAEA Records

The phrase "French Films" doesn't generally evoke the happiest images: the last-act betrayal in Breathless, a stricken Jean Pierre-Leaud standing balefully on the beach in The 400 Blows, pretty much all of Shoot the Piano Player. So chalk up the fact that this impossibly hooky Finnish band chose it as their handle to either irony or bad translation. Or move right past it and get right to the main thing that matters:... the songs. And what songs they are: French Films force-feed uppers to the Field Mice and kick the keyboard player out of New Order, delivering a batch of breathless Britpop-inspired songs with gargantuan choruses and guitar lines that glisten and glide like tiny tin airplanes. "Never let me go, never let me go," is the central plea on the rocketing "Where We Come From" — which, sonically, is the Pains of Being Pure at Heart by way of recent Mikal Cronin. As if shaking free of songs this addictive were even an option.
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Rare Birds & Strange Beasts

Sing to the Moon

Laura Mvula
2013 | Columbia

"I don't need love to rescue me/ I'll be all that I choose to be," Laura Mvula sings on "Make Me Lovely," the second track on Sing to the Moon. The British soul singer's voice is as strong as her sentiment, augmented further by delicate orchestra flourishes, soulful handclaps and college-a cappella-style vocal acrobatics. Elsewhere, Mvula fights against ideas of conventional beauty ("That's Alright"), sings about the power of music during hard... times ("Sing to the Moon"), and triumphs over loves that didn't work out ("Flying Without You"). A truly stunning, powerful debut.
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Apocalypse

Thundercat
2013 | Brainfeeder

Apocalypse, the follow-up to the madcap jazz-fusion/Saturday-morning-cartoon hallucination that was The Golden Age of the Apocalypse, explores the more chilled-out and unzipped side of Stephen Bruner. Bruner's command of jazz, R&B, Quiet Storm and straight-ahead bachelor-pad pop is stunning, and this gorgeous album makes a nice companion to the new Daft Punk.
The Moths Are Real

Serafina Steer
2013 | Stolen Recordings / PIAS Digital

Creating a sense of mystery in an age of instant information is difficult, but Serafina Steer manages it beautifully with her third album, The Moths Are Real. There's nothing particularly enigmatic about her CV — classically trained London harpist who has worked with Bat For Lashes, Patrick Wolf and John Foxx — but left to her own devices, Steer enters a world of her own, drawing you in by her side. Produced... by Jarvis Cocker, The Moths Are Real flickers between the physical realities of love, sadness and urban life — the naked romance of "Skinny Dipping," the wintery alienation of "Ballad Of Brick Lane" — and a frosted mythological wonderland that lurks the other side of the looking glass. It's a record that trembles on the threshold between worlds, not just in its merging of folk, psychedelia, prog and electronica, but in the way the lyrics are sweetly conversational one second ("Of course, my scanty life philosophy, as you suspected all along, is actually based on lines from songs," shrugs "Disco Compilation") and as stylized and strange as a temple oracle the next ("Island Odyssey," "Lady Fortune"). The reference points might seem to be in place — Joanna Newsom, Shirley Collins, Alice Coltrane, Robert Wyatt — but Steer sends the compass needle spinning, charting the places where magic and mystery poke through threadbare normality.
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Flume

Flume
2013 | Mom & Pop Music / The Orchard

Few have ever looked to Australia for the latest trends in electronic music. Although it has produced its fair share of innovators, from disco flirts Vanda & Young to hip auteurs The Avalanches, Down Under electronic music is largely seen as the foppish cousin to rock's more masculine manoeuvres. There was a brief flirtation with acid house in the early '90s, mainly fueled by British ex-pats, but interest was always confined to... pockets of aficionados. Until, that is, the arrival of Flume on forward-thinking label Future Classic.

With comparisons to The Weeknd and Toro Y Moi (whom he supported on a recent London date), 21-year-old Harley Streten has seemingly risen from nowhere to produce one of the most exciting electronic debuts of the year. Breakthrough single "Holdin' On" is a sublime slice of wobblesome R&B, while the instrumental "Ezra" has crunk beats leavened with a hook that could have been lifted from the Art of Noise. "Left Alone," which features Melbourne's magnificently-named Chet Faker, feels delivered straight from a Pentecostal church rather than a precocious kid from the Sydney 'burbs, while "More Than You Thought" veers towards stomping Skrillex territory without ever resorting to the easy pay-offs the American producer favors.

This album has already knocked Justin Bieber off the No. 1 spot in Australia — an astonishing achievement for music that is still some way from being pure pop. From a trickle to a torrent: This Flume is unstoppable.
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Leave Me Midnight

My Gold Mask
2013 | Goldy Tapes / CD Baby

At this point, the breakup album has been bent into countless shapes. So rather than try to re-shape it, on their debut album My Gold Mask's Gretta Rochelle and Jack Armondo simply amplified its effects. They didn't skimp on dramatics, with Rochelle's pleading vocals, Armondo's spiraling guitar riffs and lyrics that grapple with psychosis and reference Gothic literature and Italo horror flicks. The result achieves a spellbinding emotional intensity that's easy to... inhabit.
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Baroque

Nadia Sirota
New Amsterdam

Nadia Sirota is the violist of choice for the New York contemporary-classical scene, and on Baroque, she follows up her astoundingly assured debut, First Things First, with fresh works from many of the composers who contributed to that recording. Judd Greenstein's piece for seven violas (all of them multitracked by Sirota), "In Teaching Others We Teach Ourselves," employs a variety of dizzying riffs, separated by episodes of subtle pizzicato, in order to... evoke the many stages of cosmos-crossing undertaken by the famous "Golden Record" shot into deep space by NASA back in 1977. It's also a tour de force opportunity for Sirota to show off her otherworldly chops and a variety of techniques: Nico Muhly's jaunty "Etude 3" is as memorable as the two others in his series, which he gave Sirota the first time around, and is a showcase for Sirota the player.

But there are new composers this time as well, even if they are generally familiar to the New Amsterdam coterie. Shara Worden's "From the Invisible to the Visible" is a brief, attractive offering that introduces keyboards and organs into the mix to considered effect. Missy Mazzoli's "Tooth and Nail" continues the electronic theme and is the album's standout, featuring some exciting hyper-glitch programming by the composer in during its opening minutes. Solid pieces from Paul Corley and Daniel Bjarnason complete this satisfying program, which, while more tricked-out electronically than Sirota's first offering, retains her aesthetic imprint.
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Smart Ass Black Boy

Fat Tony
2013 | Young One

Fat Tony is the kind of guy fated to slip between the cracks. He's from Houston, but sounds like no Texas rappers; occasionally political, but not much of a firebrand; muted and thoughtful, but no one's idea, really, of a "conscious rapper." He has a casual, conversational voice, and his raps tumble out like early Common, before he got too serious. There are dumb puns, a few trenchant insights and, above all,... an appealing confidence. The entire project was produced by Tom Cruz, a producer with a rubbery, cut-and-paste style, and Smart Ass Black Boy slips by agreeably like a late night dorm room bull session.
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Your Turn

Ceramic Dog
2013 | Northern Spy Records / Redeye

"We have a new business model, we'll blow you for a nickel." This is the acidic guitarist Marc Ribot, summing up the effect that the internet has had on the value of recorded music, in one pithy quote. Ribot, who played with Tom Waits just as the singer was morphing from hobo crooner to glass-spitting carnie barker, has never been afraid of sharp edges, and has made his career since his Waits... days in the avant-garde circuit. But Your Turn is a veer back into rock-song territory, albeit rock songs with big crayon doodles all over them: Title track "Your Turn" is a driving motorik groove defaced with a sloppy guitar solo that could be a Shreds video.
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Clayton: The Julius Eastman Memory Depot

Jace Clayton
New Amsterdam

In his performances as DJ/rupture, Jace Clayton has been part of that experimental breed of DJ/producers who draw on the sounds of the classical avant-garde. But while names like Edgard Varese, Iannis Xenakis and Karlheinz Stockhausen have become hip in DJ culture, Clayton has turned to one of music's true outliers, the gay African-American composer Julius Eastman. (Both his sexual orientation and race figure prominently in his titles.) The Julius Eastman Memorial... Depot is neither a mash-up nor a straight remix. It is a recasting and reimagining of two of Eastman's most important and defining works, "Evil Nigger" and "Gay Guerrilla," both originally for four pianos but arranged here for two pianos and live electronics. And it is a remarkable, heartfelt tribute to a man who was a fixture on the New York "downtown" scene in the '70s and '80s, performing with Meredith Monk and singing the lead role in Peter Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs For a Mad King before succumbing to alcohol and drug addiction, homelessness and death at the age of 49.

"Evil Nigger, Part 1" is almost pretty, with the layered chiming of its minimalist pianos; Part 2 abruptly switches to a more obviously electronic sound; Part 3 takes on a darker, dramatic hue as the music descends to the bass end of the keyboards, heaving and rolling in waves of increasingly dense sound that almost sounds like a kind of broadband drone. The final part announces itself with the sounds of glitch electronica, while the piano textures thin out, creating a sense both of space and of expectation that something will soon come rushing in to fill it. Shards of gamelan-like piano, impossibly rapid trills and tolling chords hover around the edges of the mix, until a brief explosion of massive piano sounds takes over. It ends as ambiguously as one of Bela Bartok's nachtmusik ("night music") pieces, with the half-remembered echoes of those earlier trills in a haunted electroacoustic haze.

"Gay Guerrilla," in five parts, begins with the steady pulse of the pianos; Clayton's electronics are subtle but telling, often hard to distinguish from the pianos themselves. In Part 2, a web of shifting electronic drones grows out of the patter of almost bell-like tones in the upper registers of the keyboards. When the pianos return, in a gently galloping rhythm, the result is perhaps the most conventionally beautiful music here. "Conventionally" being a relative term, of course. Part 3 begins to build up rhythmic counterpoint that sounds reminiscent of Steve Reich's work, but no sooner does that happen then the sound of a turntable dying brings the music to a grinding halt — at which point we hear Martin Luther's hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." (This appropriation appears in Eastman's original version of the piece.) Echoes of that tune flit through the thick piano textures of Part 4; and Part 5, with its endlessly ascending pianos, has a more reflective, even valedictory cast.

The album concludes with a Jace Clayton original, a short song that takes the wry humor of Eastman's own work and turns it on the usual "equal-opportunity employment" speech, turning it into a pensive contemplation of a man who was driven to despair in part by a lack of employment opportunities.
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Betty Rubble: The Initiation

Mykki Blanco
2013 | UNO NYC

Mykki Blanco is a performance artist, a black gay drag queen and a rapper. She is the center of her own Venn diagram, in other words, and on Betty Rubble she went from "promising" to great. Her voice is raspy and manic, a bit of Lil Wayne at his most enthusiastically unhinged and a bit of Young Dro in how audibly she relishes the vowel and consonant sounds leaving her mouth. The... beats on Rubble are a collision of electro, snap music and Neptunes, a lot of empty space and room for attitude and personality. Blanco obliges, calling herself "Richie Rich with a clit in the middle" and interpolating "If I Was a Rich Man" on "Angggry Birdz" and telling a hilariously detailed story about a tour-stop conquest on "Vienna."
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Out-of-Time Dispatches

Sudden Elevation

Ólöf Arnalds
2013 | One Little Indian / The Orchard

The most attractive thing about Ólöf Arnalds's music is the sense of mystery. Beginning with her beguiling 2007 debut Við og Við, Arnalds spun songs that felt like recitations from some yellowing old elvish spell book, her soprano curling like enchanted vines and gentle guitar spinning out notes like spiderwebs reflecting sunlight. That she sang in Icelandic — with its strange vowel runs and twisting cadence — only made her songs feel... more otherworldly. So it's no small risk for her to write and sing the entirety of Sudden Elevation in English; like a sitcom actor suddenly deciding to go Method, peeling away Arnalds's gauzy façade leaves the raw essence of her music exposed.

The good news is that the songs can bear the scrutiny. Sudden Elevation contains all the tender beauty of Arnalds's previous efforts — the wandering-bard guitar playing, the vocal melodies that bob like butterflies in a spring breeze. And though her lyrics are in English, that doesn't mean they're any more easily parsed. The verses in the gently waltzing "Return Again," for instance, are tangled as old riddles. Though the decision to forsake her native tongue could be read as a bid for more mainstream acceptance, thankfully, Arnalds has resisted any temptation to further burnish her sound. There are no horn charts, no swooping orchestras, nothing much beyond Arnalds's guitar and voice. All of this only contributes to Sudden Elevation's dreamlike feel: You can understand the words and make sense of the general narrative, but the overall meaning remains as alluringly ambiguous as ever.
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Leanin' On Slick

Aceyalone
2013 | Decon

From the breaks that first propelled Kool Herc's parties in '73 to Dre's minimoogs to Mystikal's manic James Brown tics, funk has not only provided a foundational structure to hip-hop, it's often risen to the surface and flat-out driven it. West Coast indie-rap vet Aceyalone has spent more than 20 years riding the outskirts of that territory, through his time with Freestyle Fellowship to his cult-classic solo debut All Balls Don't Bounce... to the later-career triumph of RJD2 teamup "A Beautiful Mine" (aka the Mad Men theme song). So after a long career — concurrent with a stab at making another excursion into grown-man rap — Leanin' on Slick sees Aceyalone toeing that line between underground rap and the traditions that scene built its base on.

The title track draws off the J.B.'s sound more in a way befitting a '70s indie-label garage-funk band (or a Daptonian revivalist group) than, say, the Bomb Squad, and the lyrical conceit isn't the only throwback — Acey's smooth-rolling delivery relays hustler tales from days when Caddies rolled long and low instead of high on 24s. That's not the only nod to vintage soul: "I Can Get It Myself" cockily struts through the door that James Brown demanded be opened back in '69, the handclaps and horn stabs of "What You Gone Do With That" is an old-school road-show with Acey's own overdubbed echoes standing in for call-and-response vocalists, and the pairing of his steady-job grind motivation with a wailing Cee-Lo chorus makes "Workin' Man's Blues" the closest Aceyalone's come to a genuine but uncompromised potential pop crossover. If the record vibe skews older, it's by design — leadoff cut "30 and Up" practically decrees it — but if this is the album young Aceyalone figured he'd be making once he approached middle age, he had some right-thinking foresight.
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The Coming Tide

Luke Winslow-King
2013 | Bloodshot Records

The 29-year-old singer/songwriter, slide guitarist and eMusic Selects alum Luke Winslow-King is from Michigan, but he has called The Big Easy home since 2001. On his third full-length, you can hear that the city has made its way into his bones. On The Coming Tide, Winslow-King masters the art of revivalist folk, seamlessly blending New Orleans jazz, Delta blues and ragtime into an album as sweet and satisfying as devouring plate of... beignets and sipping a café au lait on the banks of the Mississippi.

Accompanied by his girlfriend, the sugary-voiced, washboard-wielding Esther Rose, Winslow-King amasses a fine collection of traditionalist originals and personalized covers on The Coming Tide. Rose sings harmony while a thumping upright bass and a brass section leading call-and-repeats accompany them, and the album sways with easy confidence. Winslow-King particularly shines in his blues numbers, namely a faithful, slower rendition of Blind Willie Johnson's "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning" and a slide-driven cover of "Got My Mind Set On You," made famous by George Harrison in the late '80s. Nostalgia rains heavy on The Coming Tide, but Winslow-King reins it in, refashioning weathered words and sounds and branding them his own.
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The Stand-In

Caitlin Rose
2013 | ATO Records

Given her avowed love of old Hollywood glamour (just check out that album cover), the title of Caitlin Rose's sophomore full-length likely refers to the 1937 backlot comedy The Stand-In, about a love triangle between the title character, a hapless number cruncher and a hopeless film producer. While Rose does write about similar romantic confusions, the film reference nevertheless comes across as false modesty: On these dozen songs, she emerges as a... confident, distinctive pop-country artist with a biting lyrical style and a smart way with a hook. Perhaps A Star Is Born sounded too cocky?

Like any good actress, Rose has impressive range. The Stand-In has roots in classic country, displaying the poise of Tammy Wynette on "Everywhere I Go" and the assertiveness of Loretta Lynn on "Waitin'." Standout "Golden Boy" casts her as a countrypolitan chanteuse against a widescreen arrangement that recalls Owen Bradley, and she turns that chorus into a gently devastating plea: "Golden boy, don't go away/ I won't ask you what you're here for/ If you stay." Occasionally she holds her twang in check, but for the most part her vocals are expressive, building from the conspiratorial whisper of "When I'm Gone" to the full-throated belt of "Only a Clown."

Rarely reverent to one style or genre, The Stand-In mixes country with classic rock, radio pop, and even speakeasy jazz on closer "Old Numbers." The rollicking Hank- and Tennessee Williams-inspired "Menagerie" and first single "Only a Clown" both hinge on Byrds-style guitar riffs that suggest an affinity for West Coast nuggets, and the Las Vegas-set "Pink Champagne" is debauched country folk, a sad-eyed and slightly sloshed reimagining of Gram Parsons's "Sin City." No matter how blue she sounds, there's always a lively hint of humor even in her despair — a distinguishing trait that suggests she may be ready for her close-up.
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Berberian Sound Studio

Broadcast
2013 | Warp Records

When it came to soundtracking Peter Strickland's horror film Berberian Sound Studio, about a British sound engineer working for an Italian film company in the 1970s, there could have been no other name on the list than Broadcast. The band, aka Trish Keenan and James Cargill, were recording this album when Keenan died from pneumonia in 2011, age just 42, and it is a sublime, sad reminder of a remarkable talent lost.... On their own albums, the pair's haunting songs are constructed from elements that evoke half-remembered television themes, or a ghostly folk group transmitting from the future. It's rare that a soundtrack album constructed from fragments of music and snatches of dialogue is a rewarding listen, but Broadcast — perhaps because they are so adept at creating otherworldly sounds from pop's detritus — managed it beautifully here. Some of the tracks are genuinely unnerving, such as "Mark Of The Devil," its mean electronic pulses and chants sounding like wraiths in charge of a power station, or the guttural gabbling of "A Goblin." These terrifying moments are contrasted with pastoral instrumentals, built largely from flute, xylophone and organ, which could soundtrack a cold, misty morning as well as the original film. A bewitching last Broadcast.
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Kid Face

Samantha Crain
2013 | Ramseur Records / The Orchard

Singer-songwriter Samantha Crain has always sounded like an old soul, her dusty alto worn down by restless thoughts and free-floating anxiety. On the autobiographical Kid Face, the Oklahoma native sounds even more wizened as she explores loneliness, wanderlust and emotional disruption. Produced by John Vanderslice, Kid Face is a sparse record, laced with stark folk and Americana signifiers: acoustic guitar, wobbly piano, curled pedal steel and keening violin. Shambling banjo, stabs... of synthesizer or electric guitar add occasional jolts of urgency to the mix.

But significantly, Crain comes into her own as a lyricist on Kid Face. Besides being a meticulous wordsmith ("I'm going to shows, counting my toes and crying over you" is how she describes one particularly trying breakup), she offers thorough, unflinching self-analysis. Crain uses Kid Face's songs to examine her place in the world — and figure out how her actions affect others, for better and for worse. "Churchill" addresses the realization that "my whole life I thought I was an opportunist/ But I'm not"; "Sand Paintings" struggles with overcoming self-sabotaging tendencies; and "Ax" is a call to be kind in the face of negativity. Perhaps most impressive is "Never Going Back," which describes (hopefully) breaking free from a disastrous affair: "The ending of 10,000 dreams/ My soul has finally been set free from his cool eyes." The song is devastatingly effective because of its economy, the same trait that also makes Kid Face a wonderful record.
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Fairouz: Native Informant

Mohammed Fairouz
Naxos

Native Informant begins with a tense, mournful clarinet, sobbing quietly in bent phrases. The soprano Melissa Hughes joins in, her voice blending eerily with the clarinet. The piece is "Tahwidah," by the composer Mohammed Fairouz, and it blends harmonic languages and geography in a way that will remind modern classical listeners of the famous Osvaldo Golijov, before the composer got lost in his own hype. The piece is meant as a lullaby,... but it carries a deep sadness that could curdle milk.

Native Informant is an arresting showcase for Fairouz's voice, which is plangent, melodic, folkloric and unpredictable: His lines spool out in ways that don't follow your ear's predetermined path for them. He wrote eloquently of soaking in Armenian and Lebanese art and poetry for the Huffington Post, and Fairouz's music is that of a thoughtful traveler: Native Informant traverses boundaries without ever losing its gentle footing.
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Nightmare Ending

Eluvium
2013 | Temporary Residence Ltd. / SC Distribution

As gentle as mist settling over a lake at daybreak, Nightmare Ending, the latest album from Eluvium, is a work of tender beauty. Piano drifts down slow as snowflakes, soft bands of sound expand and Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan turns in a lovely, fragile vocal on "Happiness."
Selected Studies Vol. 1

Lloyd Cole & Hans-Joachim Roedelius
2013 | Bureau B

Hans-Joachim Roedelius is a towering figure of Krautrock: He formed Qluster (later renamed Cluster) and Harmonia, and his deceptively simple synth pieces in the late 1970s and early '80s are a genre unto themselves. Lloyd Cole is better known for literate guitar rock than synth drones, but here the two find a serene common ground, creating an airy, spacious album full of twinkling, twirling little mobiles. The music seems to move forward... and backward at once: Roedelius's genius was in creating gently hypnotic pieces out of minimal materials, and Selected Studies, belying its forbiddingly dry name, sparkles.
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Lady

Lady, The Band
2013 | Truth & Soul Records

This invigorating retro-soul album comes from a duo consisting of one-time UK 2-step garage star Terri Walker and Nicole Wray, whose "Make It Hot" (under her first but not last name) was one of a half-dozen Jeep bombs Timbaland concocted in 1998. Nothing about Lady, also the name of their act, feels forced — Walker and Wray sound like they're having the time of their lives, not least because nothing is stopping... them from getting to dig in lyrically. "If You Wanna Be My Man" analyzes a relationship sharply but without rancor ("You changed, and I changed/What we used to be") over a groove that's equal parts Spinners and Bill Withers. And the amazing "Money" is a bad-boyfriend anthem (she likes the green better than him) that doubles as a proud feminist declaration ("I feel proud that I'm an independent lady") — not to mention a classic soul single, whatever the calendar year.
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Underdogs and Introverts

TORRES

TORRES
2013 | TORRES / TuneCore

The debut album by this woman who calls herself Torres (real name: Mackenzie Scott) was recorded in a creaky old Nashville house that happens to be owned by Tony Joe White, he who gave the world "Polk Salad Annie." But that may have just been a lucky coincidence. These songs feel as if they were bound to come crawling out of Scott's body no matter what she did or where she was,... a strange litter of scowling, writhing fuzzballs just dead set on getting born. Dominated by the wavery tones of her Gibson 355 electric, the songs explore the fragile architecture of human relationships, often finding Scott standing amid a steaming pile of rubble, wondering not about what caused the house to fall but what to do, now, with all the shattered pieces left behind. "Everything hurts, but it's fine, it's fine," she sings — almost seethes — on "Honey," the album's lead single, a languid meditation on stasis and confession that builds up slow around a ground-out guitar line and crests in waves of pummeling drums, frayed vocals, frayed everything. Though lit up with distortion and drum-machine pulses, Torres is easily imaginable as a stripped-down acoustic affair, and in some ways might be better as such; "Come to Terms" finds Scott unplugged and fingerpicking, allowing lines like "just because the two of us will both grow old in time/ don't mean we should go old together" the time and space to make their full devastation known.
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Ripely Pine

Lady Lamb the Beekeeper
2013 | Ba Da Bing! / Revolver

The first two minutes of Lady Lamb the Beekeeper's Ripely Pine seem to reinforce the notion of fragile acquiescence that 23-year-old Aly Spaltro's stage name suggests. "Take me by the arm to the altar/ Take me by the collar to the cliff/ …Take me by the braid down to my grave," she croons on "Hair to the Ferris Wheel" over a languidly-thumbed electric guitar, the ghost of an autoharp shuffling around in... the background. But on this, Lady Lamb the Beekeeper's first record cut in a proper studio, nothing is quite as it seems. Just when a lesser song might be content to wrap up its delicate reverie, the wool is ripped away and a Technicolor blast of crunchy guitars and detached-garage drums gush forth, Spaltro's dusky voice bottoming out over the deluge. This is par for the course on Ripely Pine; these songs tend start in one place, end in another, and cycle through sometimes a dozen imaginings of themselves on the way — like "You Are The Apple" which, over seven minutes, slides from a nervous acoustic twitch to a swampy low-slung romp to a billowing, spiking orchestral swoon. The album's lyrical turf is both elemental and surreal, like a funhouse mirror turned on a dream of an anatomy lab; hearts are eaten like strawberry cake, blood is canned like jam, love is handled like a newborn's skull. By the end, it's clear those opening lines weren't a coy feint, but a trap; it's you who is being led, and Lady Lamb the Beekeeper with her claws in your arm. And you will go with her — to the altar, to the grave, wherever — and love every weird minute of it.
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A Love Surreal

Bilal
2013 | eOne Music / Entertainment One Distribution

Bilal's career is odd: He is indelibly associated with the rise of early-'00s neo-soul, and while he hasn't become as famous as some of his contemporaries, he also didn't disappear down a wormhole like D'Angelo. Bilal's elastic, glorious voice has been a reliable presence on Roots records and other rap projects over the last 10 years, but his solo career, hampered by the usual setbacks, sputtered. His name seemed destined to be... forever preceded by a "ft."

A Love Surreal, released last winter, is only his third in 12 years, a batting average only slightly higher than D'Angelo's. The album doesn't reflect any bitterness or discontent, however; it is a lush, relaxed album, one that pivots neatly between styles. "West Side Girl" is grotty, sexy and Prince-ly; "Slipping Away" gazes at the stars like Donny Hathaway; "Lost For Now" even sounds remarkably like Big Star.
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Open the Crown

Arrington de Dionyso's Malaikat dan Slnga
2013 | K Records / SC Distribution

Now 16 years into his career, Arrington De Dionyso is essentially doomed to be underrated. His work with the brilliant, ignored Old Time Relijun channeled the same chaotic mania of The Pop Group, full of slashing voodoo guitars, hyperventilating percussion and De Dionyso's urgent, terrified howl — which bore more than a passing resemblance to Pop Group frontman Mark Stewart. Since embarking on a solo career in 2006, his work has only... gotten more daring and more fascinating. It's guaranteed to appeal to anyone with any measure of fondness for pioneering late '70s UK groups like the Slits, Swell Maps and PiL. Like those groups, De Dionyso dismantles jazz, dub and reggae and uses the individual elements to create something riveting and otherworldly. "There Will Be No Survivors" crawls grimly forward, a strangled saxophone punctuating De Dionyso's seething promise: "We're going down in flames." "I Create in the Broken System" is essentially Satanic reggae, De Dionyso doing his best Don Van Vliet over burnt-to-a-crisp, undead two-step. The title track is glorious cacophony, full of falling-down-the-stairs drums, horror-house organs and De Dionyso's madman proclamations ("I am the shapeshifter! I am the song of psychic fire! 10,000 tigers in my temple!") It's one of the year's most fearless records, daring music for those who dare investigate.
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House of Woo

Maxmillion Dunbar
2013 | RVNG INTL. / SC Distribution

Maxmillion Dunbar, a DJ/producer from Washington, D.C., makes sleek, spacious electronic music pitched between the current vogues for the rhythmic action of vintage Chicago house and the heady contemplation of cosmic synthesizer jams. About half of House of Woo plays as certifiable dance music, with upright rhythms that assert themselves with force, while the other half has nary a beat to speak for. Representing the former, "Slave to the Vibe" opens with... unbound '80s keyboard sounds, patiently arrayed in floating fashion, that snap into a formalist grid when the beat kicks in a little more than two minutes in. The way the hi-hat hangs in what sounds like a sweaty expanse of the stratosphere evokes old Chicago house anthems by the likes of Larry Heard (Mr. Fingers, Fingers Inc.), but "Woo" pulls back, quiets down, and drifts into comparatively ambient territory. A few beats still clack and clang, but the background textures creep the fore, and a wandering, thinking-out-loud synth-riff establishes itself in a way that remains present in tracks like "Coins for the Canopy" and "The Figurine (Nod Mix)." The funky dancefloor-filler "Ice Cream Graffiti" goes big and beat-intensive again, but it's never long before the sound spaces out and spreads in a manner befitting the title of "Loving the Drift."
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Ugly Heroes

Ugly Heroes
2013 | Mello Music Group / The Orchard

Ugly Heroes is comprised of two rising emcees, Verbal Kent and Red Pill, and one veteran producer, Apollo Brown, who set out to create rap music that embodied the spirit of the diminishing blue-collar workforce. "It's the person that works on your car. It's the factory worker that's counting parts all day, smelling like oil and grease," Brown says. "That individual that provides for their family, makes a living and is a... human being — that's a ugly hero." Ugly Heroes' debut, self-titled album takes a hard look into a life of grueling work: clocking in long hours, drinking afterward and somehow maintaining enough strength to continue.
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Haw

Hiss Golden Messenger
2013 | Paradise of Bachelors / Redeye

After making music for nearly 20 years, veteran Michael Taylor is just now finding his largest audience with Hiss Golden Messenger. It's actually his third band, following the short-lived punk group Ex-Ignota and the longer-lived San Francisco alt-country act The Court & Spark. When the latter broke up in 2007 — after four albums and nearly a decade of near-constant touring — Taylor settled down in Durham, North Carolina, where he started... a family, pursued a degree in folklore, and made music more as a hobby than as a priority.

Over several albums — a few self-released, a few more via North Carolina indie label Paradise of Bachelors — Hiss Golden Messenger has alternated between an austere solo acoustic project for Taylor and a full band featuring Scott Hirsh on guitar and Terry Lonergan on drums. For Haw, the fourth and arguably best release under the HGM moniker, they added members of Lambchop, Megafaun and the Black Twig Pickers to the line-up. Whether alone or with friends, however, the primary elements of Hiss Golden Messenger remain constant: Taylor's voice, which sounds both genial and mysterious, and his lyrics, which examine thorny issues of faith, fidelity and family.
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Bazooka

Bazooka
Slovenly Recordings

The house band at the Wild Rumpus, Greek grime peddlers and brothers-in-arms with fellow countrymen Acid Baby Jesus and Gay Anniversary deliver big, clanging songs built for late-night deep-woods campfire dancing. They've got two drummers, which is probably part of what makes the music feel so frantic: "Koritsi Stin Akti" roars forward like some kind of demonic Mustang out for one last, doomed street race; "Bye Bye Girl" is deranged country, twanging... guitar and full-gallop percussion while "Ravening Trip"'s steady chug almost sounds like a bunch of greasers mocking Madchester, its shuffling backbeat smothered by horror-film riffing. This is party music for 20-foot monsters.
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Come Cry With Me

Daniel Romano
2013 | Normal Town Records

Singer/songwriter Daniel Romano hails from Canada but sounds like he's from America's Deep South as he writes old-school country ballads sung in a deep, Man-in-Black drawl. On his latest record, this year's aptly titled Come Cry With Me, there's a dirge about unrequited love, reflections on being a rejected middle child, and a rambling saga about getting a ride with a guy who calls himself Chicken Bill.
Jay Arner

Jay Arner
2013 | Mint Records / Revolver

Jay Arner's self-titled solo debut begins with a low bass groove that sounds like an engine idling, ready to rev "Midnight on South Granville" into high gear. To say the song never bolts away is no complaint, though, as the lyrics recount a night spent catching the bus, missing your stop, getting lost and wandering aimlessly. Set against that chugging bass line, those buzzy synths and that stoner guitar, half-drunk anomie has... rarely sounded quite so epic. A Vancouver-based musician who has helmed album by Mount Eerie, Apollo Ghosts and Rose Melberg, Arner recorded these new songs during lonely sessions at his practice space, recording straight to laptop to emphasize a DIY mid-fi sound, and the resulting Jay Arner mixes mopey postpunk instrumentation with power-pop song structures. Even though the unhurried tempos are far too laidback to sell the "power" in the pop, that spacey, narcotized vibe can be deceptive: The music reveals new sonic and lyrical details with each listen, whether it's the M.C. Escher hook on "Broken Glass" or the world-weary cautions of "Nightclubs," which finds a tricky balance between wry and romantic.
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Who to See at Pitchfork Music Festival 2013

eMusic Editorial Staff — Mon, 15 Jul 2013 13:00:14 +0000

From the fiery blast of White Lung to the superb showmanship of R. Kelly to the rowdy, jagged guitars of Parquet Courts, we’ve got you covered when it comes to who you should be seeing at Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago’s Union Park this weekend.

Want eMusic’s take on this year’s festivities? Be sure to follow our Twitter account and visit 17 Dots throughout the weekend for our editors’ complete coverage.

Bjork

Biophilia

Björk
2011 | Nonesuch

Twenty-seven years into her career, Bjork is running the risk of becoming a pop music Alexander the Great, weeping for there are no more worlds to conquer. She has reconfigured her sound in nearly every conceivable way, moving from adventurous electro on the still-classic Post through skewed orch-pop (Vespertine), voice-only compositions (Medulla) and globe-gobbling world music (Volta). She is one of a very few musicians — there are maybe three of them... worldwide — whose rare failures are even interesting, because they at least display evidence of ambition and novel ideas. That ambition extends to her staging. A run of shows at the Hall of Science in Queens, New York featured specially-constructed instruments and a loose theme (including voiceover narration) about the destructive power of nature. How much of that she'll carry into her festival performances remains to be seen, but if history is any indication, an equal won’t be found all weekend. — J. Edward Keyes
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R. Kelly

Write Me Back (Deluxe Version)

R. Kelly
2012 | RCA Records Label

When R. Kelly toured in 2007, he first appeared in silhouette, wearing a top hat, standing at the top of a giant staircase, underneath a neon sign that read "Mr. Showbiz." When he toured in 2010, his first appearance was in a five-minute black-and-white, note-perfect Casablanca-style short film. When he toured in 2012, he had two lackeys bring out an oversized white throne halfway through the show just so he could... sit relax for a number. Simply put: R. Kelly is a showman, and the live setting is where he gets to indulge the frustrated musical theatre director within. Songs become set pieces (In '07, he performed "Feelin' On Yo Booty" as an aria, tongue firmly in cheek), the banter is tautly-scripted and generally hilarious, and Kells visibly relishes every indulgent flourish. To say nothing of the fact that he remains one of our greatest living male vocalists, that he sings live every time, and that even 30 seconds of hearing him reinforces the notion that he is the heir to greats like Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye — even if those two never used an extended jungle metaphor to sing about doin' it. — JEK
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Solange

True

Solange
2012 | Terrible Records / The Orchard

Solange Knowles released her first album in 2011, but it was last year that she truly broke out as more than just Bey's little sister. Her EP True is all dancefloor hits, from the funky, giggly start of "Losing You," to the nostalgic heartbreaker "Some Things Never Seem to Fucking Work," to the Daydream-era-Mariah Carey-channeling "Don't Let Me Down." — Laura Leebove

M.I.A.

MAYA

M.I.A.
2010 | XL Interscope

M.I.A. took no small amount of critical heat for 2010's ///Y/, an album that took its musical cues from Skinny Puppy and Nitzer Ebb and opened with the "paranoid" notion that the U.S. government was monitoring its citizens Google searches. Flash forward three years later, in the wake of both the NSA wiretapping scandal and Kanye West's similarly industrial-influenced Yeezus, and you could argue that the only real problem with ///Y/ is... that it was too far ahead of the curve. Say what you will about M.I.A., she remains an artist stubbornly guided by her own muse, even what that muse causes her to fall afoul of even her most ardent one-time supporters. The live shows supporting ///Y/ featured backup musicians in burkas "playing" power drills, Einsturzende Neubauten style. Whateve she pulls at Pitchfork this year, don't be too surprised if you catch another artist nicking it four years from now. – JEK
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Phosophorescent

Muchacho

Phosphorescent
2013 | Dead Oceans / SC Distribution

Phosphorescent's Matthew Houck is a country-rock troubadour with a broken voice, a Willie Nelson tremble overcome with unpredictable hiccups, that some people find irritating and many find devastating. He uses it to sing to us from a series of characters who probably find a lot in common with crushed birds.

His 2013 record Muchacho is an ethereal meditation on fate and the limits of free will delivered by a sadly broken soul. It... is a record full of beautiful, inscrutably poetic language — koans, charms, blades, invocations. And all those horn charts and pedal steel guitars are still here, but they’ve been put to a larger task than ever before: Houck is contemplating his place in the universe, and ours. Live, he abandons the pretense of fragility, and rips through his music with road-warrior, alpha intensity. — Jayson Greene
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White Lung

sorry

White Lung
2012 | Deranged Records / The Orchard

White Lung vocalist Mish Way is a human tornado, a blinding corkscrew of motion and sound ripping up the center of her songs like the Tasmanian Devil turned loose in the middle of a Safeway. It's the musical equivalent of being grabbed by the shoulders and throttled repeatedly. Which is a great thing. White Lung's second full-length Sorry inflicts more damage than a runaway rotary blade, and their live show is just... as devastating. It's a blast of fire and fury, an endless barrage of megaton cannonballs aimed directly at your throat. — JEK
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The Breeders

Last Splash

The Breeders
2008 | Rhino/Elektra

Arguably the least-likely '90s crossover success, the Breeders used tart candy pop single "Cannonball" to lure an army of unsuspecting Alternative Nationalists into one of the most delightfully bewildering rock records of the last 30 years. Last Splash defies one convention after another — drums drop out and re-enter, guitar lines are curl and collapse like Shrinky Dinks and Kim Deal's voice is one part fairy godmother, one part bad witch. Twenty... years on, they sound better than ever, playing the songs from Splash better than they ever did, recreating all of its oddball glory for a new generation of acolytes. — JEK
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Killer Mike

R.A.P. Music

Killer Mike
2012 | Williams Street Records

Killer Mike hasn't made a career habit of taking prisoners: Whether you're a Forbes list millionaire ("a whore's list," as far as he's concerned), a rapper like himself who is an "advertisement for agony and pain," or, god help you, Ronald Reagan ("I'll leave you with four words: I'm glad Reagan dead"), Mike has choice words for you. And the emphasis is on "choice": his bellowing, burly voice and big gut might... give the impression of someone heavy-footed and lumbering, but Mike can rap as nimbly as he does forcefully. Live, he will leave you feeling like the slab of meat in Rocky's freezer: tenderized, worked over. But in a good way. Also, if the gods are kind, his new confidante and best friend El-P will show up. — JG
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El-P

Cancer 4 Cure

El-P
2012 | Fat Possum Records

Over his nearly 15-year career, whether as part of Company Flow or on his own Def Jux label, El-P has filled your ear with the kind of verses you can pull back on eight times in a row and still feel like you're scrambling to catch up. His mind races, his heart hammers and his production, frenetic and detailed, dramatizes every neuron firing. He has nursed occasionally a reclusive misanthropic streak, only... emerging every few years with one of his enveloping, internal full-length solo records, but he stepped back out into the spotlight, big time, in 2012, alongside the Atlanta underground king Killer Mike. The two have collaborated on three projects now; El-P produced Killer Mike's career-high R.A.P. Music; Mike guested on El's Cancer4Cure and the two traded verses on the free collaborative mixtape Run The Jewels. They are ideal partners, sharing the same coruscating, passionate anger that builds things instead of razing, the kind of purifying gale that loving something moves you to. — JG
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Waxahatchee

Cerulean Salt

Waxahatchee
2013 | Don Giovanni Records / Believe Digital

Waxahatchee is singer/songwriter Katie Crutchfield, whose home-recorded debut LP American Weekend is spare, raw and intimate; mostly fuzzy acoustic guitar with hollow vocals, about the emotional turmoil of a failing relationship and succumbing to vices in hopes of happiness. Her follow-up, this year's Cerulean Salt, is more polished, recorded with electric guitars and a band, but Crutchfield is no less wrenching in her lyrics. — LL

Swans

The Seer

Swans
2012 | Young God / Revolver

"They're just so loud." That's the reverent description that follows nearly every live performance by Michael Gira's recently-resuscitated, more-vital-than-ever body-throttlers Swans. Any attempt to describe them fails outright. Are they metal? Yeah, kind of. Post-punk? Kind of that, too. Drone? Yup. They also take the practiced monotony of krautrock and bulk it up and blast it out so that the repetition is both hypnotizing and purposely maddening — Chinese Water Torture, except... the water is 20-ton bowling balls. Swans remain one of rock 'n' roll's most punishing live acts, holding audiences spellbound with just the sheer force of their fury. — JEK
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Low

The Invisible Way

Low
2013 | Sub Pop Records

2013 marks Low's 20th year as a band, as well as the release of their 10th album, the Jeff Tweedy-produced The Invisible Way. That much history means their performance at Pitchfork could be all over the map, pulling songs from their lo-fi, slow-burning early recordings, the life-affirming electric bombast of 2005's The Great Destroyer, the moodier, tightly-wound and politically-fueled Drums & Guns, and their more polished and melodic newer releases. But then... again there's always some chance they'll do something along the lines of their recent gig in Minneapolis, where they played a 27-minute version of their song "Do You Know How to Waltz?" — LL
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Wire

Change Becomes Us

Wire
2013 | pinkflag / state51

When post-punk legends Wire first reunited 13 years ago, it was in support of the astonishing Read & Burn EPs, a trilogy that found them trading the jagged angles of their influential late '70s work for brute, clobbering force. They spurned all of their classics in concert in favor of the new material, but nobody cared: All that mattered was the intensity. Their last two records have been more mannered and more... sedate and the setlists a little kinder to their vast back catalog, but if they play with even half the force they had at the beginning of this century, the results will be astonishing. — JEK
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Frankie Rose

Interstellar

Frankie Rose
2012 | Slumberland Records / The Orchard

Frankie Rose used to be a Dum Dum; she used to be a Vivian. Now she's just Frankie, and her 2012 breakout effort Interstellar shot her modest indie-pop into, well, the stars, trailed by violet comet-trail synths and misted vocals. Few albums have sounded quiet so delightfully artificial; it's like listening to the fondant of a wedding cake. Live, she scrapes all this patina away and rocks, loudly and startlingly. — JG

Mac DeMarco

2

Mac Demarco
2012 | Captured Tracks / SC Distribution

Mac DeMarco's grubby, Pigpen-Eagles version of yacht-pop might not prepare you for the full-blown, indie-rock-Andy-Kaufman hilarity of his live set; Mac is one of few humans on this planet who can make smirking assholery seem downright endearing and infectious. It helps that his bandmates are in on the fun, that they crack each other up, and that they play their often-shoddy instruments like gangbusters: in previous sets, I've seen them cover both... Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" and a Rammstein/Rob Zombie mash-up of "Du Hast Mich" and "Dragula." — JG
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Blood Orange

Coastal Grooves

Blood Orange
2011 | Domino Recording Co

Twenty-seven-year-old Dev Hynes, aka Blood Orange, has an impressive CV, having written and produced for the likes of Florence & the Machine, Solange, Kylie Minogue and Sky Ferreira. The songs on his 2011 Domino release Coastal Grooves are perfect summery pop pick-me-ups, made with shiny guitars, quirky percussion and, not surprisingly considering his clientele, some serious hooks. — LL

METZ

METZ

METZ
2012 | Sub Pop Records

The Canadian trio METZ devote themselves to a dank, fertile corner of underground rock: the baleful, misanthropic, sonically hateful squeal-rock of Jesus Lizard. Like that band, METZ doesn't write songs so much as hock them, through clogged sinuses, into your field of vision: The screaming guitars hurt your nerve endings, the drumming kicks over alley garbage cans. But their racket is militantly organized, and martially brutal, and to see them live is... a thing of cleansing beauty. — JG
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Andy Stott

Luxury Problems

Andy Stott
2012 | Modern Love / Revolver

Andy Stott's recent albums — specifically, Luxury Problems and Passed Me By, are marvels of mood and tone. They drift from dreamy ambience to crushing drone and back again, delirious and feverish, electronics clanging and whooshing like wind rushing through empty metal hallways. His DJ set at South by Southwest, though, mostly abandoned these doomy atmospherics in favor of slightly more crowd-pleasing techno. It's hard to say how things will skew in... Chicago, thought given Pitchfork Fest's audience tends toward the adventurous, it's likely Stott will veer toward the doomy, Lynchian delirium of his records. — JEK
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Parquet Courts

Light Up Gold

Parquet Courts
2013 | What's Your Rupture?

Now several months on from the release of their perfect debut Light Up Gold, it's clear that Parquet Courts may, in fact, be trying to imagine a less-dysfunctional version of The Fall. They've got the deadpan, cleverly-constructed, surrealist-narrative, written-to-be-quoted lyrics ("As for Texas? Donuts only. You will not find bagels here."), the jagged guitars and, above all, the jaw-dropping, airtight live show, where they careen breathlessly from one song to the next... before collapsing straight into a 10-minute, drawn-out drone composition with which they've been ending recent shows. After a triumphant near-year since the release of their debut, their Pitchfork performance could well serve as their coronation. — JEK
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Angel Olsen

Half Way Home

Angel Olsen
Bathetic Records

Chicago-based singer/songwriter Angel Olsen's Half Way Home was one of 2012's most beautiful — and at times devastating — releases. Her delicate songs are about the journey from lost to found, told through finger-picked guitar and a soulful, wavering voice that often cracks as it slips into her higher register. In a festival setting, though, it's likely she'll focus on the more (relatively) upbeat numbers, like the jangly, '60s girl-group-channeling "The Waiting"... and "Free." — LL
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The 10 Best Big Star Songs You Don’t Know

Joe Gross — Fri, 05 Jul 2013 15:03:41 +0000

2013 is a better time to be a Big Star fan than any time since the band was actually around. For years, their three albums — #1 Record, Radio City and Third/Sister Lovers — drifted in and out of print (to this day, nobody can completely agree on the correct running order for Third). These days, all three are consistently available, along with a fascinating box set, several live collections and the brand new compilation Nothing Can Hurt Me, which contains a set of alternate takes and mixes of Big Star classics to go along with the excellent new documentary of the same name.

Given their relatively slim output, it is tough to find Big Star songs you literally don’t know; rather, there are plenty of weird alternate takes and live versions that are worth exploring.

“In the Street (Movie Mix)”

Nothing Can Hurt Me

Big Star
2013 | OMNIVORE RECORDINGS (OMN)

It sounds anathema, but it is kind of cool to hear this power-pop staple given a big, slick, modern-sounding mix, especially given its prominence as The Big Star Song Everyone Knows thanks to Cheap Trick's cover of it, which served as the theme song to That '70s Show." Here, it sound more than ever like a radio hit that never was.

“Thank you Friends (Demo)”

Keep An Eye On The Sky

Big Star
2009 | Rhino

It is possible to wander around the Big Star rarities vault and piece together a pretty fantastic acoustic album of their skeletal demos. The studio version from Third/Sister Lovers is best known for a bright electric riff and its gospel-ish background singers. This one is just Alex and guitar, turning the celebration into a spare, thoughtful elegy.

“The Letter”

Nobody Can Dance

Big Star
2006 | Norton Records / The Orchard

Alex Chilton had essentially three careers: one belting blue-eyed R&B with the Box Tops using a soulful voice that did not sound like it belonged to a teenager; for Big Star, he used a more Beatle-ish singing voice, while in his erratic-yet-oft-brilliant solo career, his vocals sometimes had a just-fell-outta-bed-quality. This cover manages to sound like all three — his most famous Box Tops song, covered by Big Star, but sounding rough... enough that it could pass for "Like Flies..."-era Alex. Seriously odd.
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“September Gurls”

Live

Big Star
2006 | Ryko/WEA

This, the first track from a 1974 radio set, finds the band sounding faintly exhausted. Dreams have not panned out, the band is coming apart. Hummell, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, has returned to college, replaced by John Lightman. There is something very smiling-through-the-pain about this performance — the end is very effin' neigh.

“Holocaust demo”

Keep An Eye On The Sky

Big Star
2009 | Rhino

Like "Thank You Friends," the original version of this song is one of the hide-the-knives classics on Third/Sister Lovers, bolstered by piano and cello. Here, it's piano and voice only; the results are both stately and almost as dark for their formality.

“My Life is Right”

#1 Record/Radio City

Big Star
2009 | Stax

A Chris Bell song from #1 Record and one that is both one of the most flagrantly Beatles-ish tunes on the album (those harmonies! those drum rolls!), one that sounds completely of a piece with the '70s' more baroque pop artists (hello, Todd Rundgren). Not to be confused with East River Pipe's equally gorgeous, equally jangle-driven "My Life is Wrong."

“O My Soul alternate version”

Keep An Eye On The Sky

Big Star
2009 | Rhino

One of the things that's proven so inspiring about Big Star is how well constructed the songs are, even if their recorded versions can often sound like a stick has been shoved rather far up the various players' behinds, if you will. This take on "O My Soul" starts with a solid minute and 20 seconds of pure garage rock before crashing into the oddly proggy guitar pop we know and love.

“All We Ever Got from Them was Pain”

Nothing Can Hurt Me

Big Star
2013 | OMNIVORE RECORDINGS (OMN)

Technically a Chilton solo song, this demo hails from the 1969/70 era, when Chilton had left the Box Tops and was finding his voice as a songwriter (a version is on the compilation Free Again: The 1970 Sessions) before Big Star came together. Traffic sounds in the background lend this heartbreaker a very man-alone-in-his-apartment feel. Gorgeous stuff — impossibly sad and lonely.

“Baby Strange”

Keep An Eye On The Sky

Big Star
2009 | Rhino

Speaking of covers, T-Rex's bubblegum glam rock sounds pretty much perfect when hacked out by these guys, a trio of Chilton, Hummell and Stephens playing in front of a crowd waiting for Archie Bell and the Drells in 1973. (No, really.) Chilton kept this cover in his set over the year, and it's no wonder.

“I’m In Love With a Girl”

#1 Record/Radio City

Big Star
2009 | Stax

"I'm in love with a girl/ the finest girl in the world." Chilton boils it down in 1:48. One of the all-time great mixtape starter or enders. Maybe the girl knows he exists and maybe she doesn't. Either way, he has, as the kids say, all of the feels.

What’s Up Down Under? The 12 Australian Bands Reshaping Indie Rock

Doug Wallen — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 21:28:08 +0000

You must have noticed it lately: the constant influx of Australian music into other parts of the world. Beneath the global breakout success of Tame Impala and Gotye in the last couple years, is a teeming, constantly-multiplying Australian music scene. Every genre is represented, whether it’s backpack rap, soul revival, minimal techno or murder-ballad folk.

A lot of the attention has been trained on the raw, off-the-cuff bands parading out of the southern hemisphere in the wake of Eddy Current Suppression Ring half a decade ago, and given that so many Aussie bands share members with each other, it’s no shock that ECSR guitarist Mikey Young juggles other projects (Total Control, Lace Curtain, Oooga Boogas) while producing records for more great bands. But even that’s just a small fragment of the vibrant Aussie music scene.

Below is just a tiny segment of the country’s fruitful yield: a dozen bands to be sure you know, followed by a list of runners-up that could almost go on forever.

Royal Headache

Royal Headache

Royal Headache
2012 | What's Your Rupture?

Where they're from: Sydney
What they're like: Royal Headache's frantic guitar-pop is beyond rough, but there's a casual timelessness to the mix of lo-fi hooks (think Guided By Voices) and soul-damaged punk (think The Jam). Somehow, their self-titled 2012 debut bottled the frayed adrenaline of their dynamite live shows. The singer, known simply as Shogun, often goes shirtless on stage, breaking into Sam Cooke vocal curlicues with a weird anti-showmanship. Like the whole... band, he comes off like an average guy who stumbled onto a winning combination.
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Total Control

Henge Beat

Total Control
2012 | Iron Lung Records / Believe Digital

Where they're from: Melbourne
What they're like: A sort of post-punk vacation for members of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, UV Race and Straightjacket Nation, Total Control nail not just the genre's steady rhythmic pulse but also splintered electronics and dead-eyed vocals. They're as capable of raw power as they are of skin-crawling tension, and their 2011 debut Henge Beat is split equally between both approaches. The spectre of sweaty hardcore looms large, always... there to offset the strictly mechanical with a dose of the unpredictable.
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Bitch Prefect

Big Time

Bitch Prefect
2012 | Bedroom Suck Records / The Orchard

Where they're from: Adelaide/Melbourne
What they're like: Bitch Prefect write pop songs, but they're so dodgy and unpolished that they're almost punk. The Adelaide-via-Melbourne trio rack up awkward choruses and shoestring-thin melodies on their 2012 debut Bad Decisions, an album-length ode to doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. Recorded with Jack Farley (Beaches), it plays like a slacker in-joke on first listen but develops unexpected staying power with repeated visits. Self-deprecation... has rarely been so charismatic — or catchy.
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Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys

Ready For Boredom

Bed Wettin' Bad Boys
R.I.P. SOCIETY

Where they're from: Sydney
What they're like: Sister band to Royal Headache, Bed Wettin' Bad Boys burst with a similar rough-hewn tunefulness. Here, the touchstones are Slade and the Replacements, and the anthems are beery and robust. This year's Ready for Boredom is a feast of layered guitars and neurotic lyrics, sung with an urgency that can border on panic. It's a pub record of a different sort: It's more introspective — an... all-night drink-a-thon for one.
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Super Wild Horses

Crosswords

Super Wild Horses
2013 | Dot Dash Recordings

Where they're from: Melbourne
What they're like: Much has been made about the fact that Hayley McKee and Amy Franz formed Super Wild Horses before they really knew how to play their instruments — guitar and drums, respectively. But their call-and-response shouts and essential rawness struck a chord. Where 2010's Fifteen piled scrappy garage-pop with enthusiastic vocal harmonies, this year's Crosswords introduces a mellower current and some classic country melancholy. The duo are... still noisy when they want to be, but it's all the more effective coming after the quieter bits.
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Scott & Charlene’s Wedding

Para Vista Social Club (Deluxe Edition)

Scott & Charlene's Wedding
2012 | Critical Heights / The Orchard

Where they're from: Melbourne/New York
What they're like: Named for the mid '80s TV nuptials of Kylie Minogue's character on the Aussie soap Neighbours, Scott & Charlene's Wedding is the outlet for New York-based expat Craig Dermody. His tiny-run debut Para Vista Social Club was an instant cult hit, and soon earned a proper release through Queensland label Bedroom Suck. Spiking slacker guitar-pop with autobiographical tunes about dead-end jobs, Dermody found a global... audience mostly via word-of-mouth gushing. The upcoming second LP Any Port in a Storm is less jangly but just as down-to-earth, with Dermody's singing as rough and convincing as ever.
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Woollen Kits

Four Girls

Woollen Kits
2012 | Trouble In Mind Records / TuneCore

Where they're from: Melbourne
What they're like: Woollen Kits started off sounding pretty much just like mid-period Beat Happening, full of froggy baritone and primitive romance. But with the two albums Woollen Kits and Four Girls — released as bookends of 2012 — the trio graduated to something more universal. They embraced power-pop and Burger Records garage, with songs about falling asleep during class and (of course) pining hopelessly for that certain someone.... They even signed to Chicago label Trouble in Mind — launchpad for Mikal Cronin and Jacco Gardner — proof that their balance of lyrical naiveté and abundant hooks was just right.
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Milk Teddy

Zingers

Milk Teddy
2012 | Lost and Lonesome / The Orchard

Where they're from: Melbourne
What they're like: Taking cues from early Flying Nun, Milk Teddy fit right into Melbourne's growing jangle revival. 2012's long-gestating debut Zingers spun off on its own course, upping the flange effect and layering instruments into a gorgeous collage. Frontman Thomas Mendelovits shrugs off lyrics that feel like stream-of-consciousness ramblings, and the music follows a similar sort of dream logic. It's underground pop twisted and made unreliable, spiraling off... toward the horizon.
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Blank Realm

Go Easy

Blank Realm
2013 | Fire Records / The Orchard

Where they're from: Brisbane
What they're like: The fact that they've got ties to labels like Siltbreeze, Fire and Bedroom Suck should confirm Blank Realm's indie cred. They're not cool in the traditional sense, but their weirdo pop songs are catnip for vinyl-thumbing misfits the world over. Take the single "Cleaning Up My Mess" from their third album Go Easy: It's romantic yet bratty ("Love, will you clean up my mess again"?) and... sloshes along for seven minutes, punctuated by casually brilliant guitar lines. Fans of Royal Trux and Dinosaur Jr. will feel right at home.
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The Laurels

Plains

The Laurels
2013 | Rice Is Nice / Redeye

Where they're from: Sydney
What they're like: Committed students of shoegaze, The Laurels apply those lessons to psychedelic rock. Needless to say, their 2012 debut Plains is texturally mesmerising. But it's also packed with sneakily strong songwriting, to the point where you would relish the tunes even with all the surrealism stripped away. The real secret weapon is the Krautrock-y rhythm section. No wonder The Black Angels have taken them under their wing,... touring with them in Australia and booking them for Austin Psych Fest.
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Taco Leg

Taco Leg

Taco Leg
2012 | Fan Death Records / TuneCore

Where they're from: Perth
What they're like: Taco Leg play a shabby strain of post-punk that's custom-made for a cult audience. But for all of the trio's wobbly uncertainty, their songs are oddly infectious and share the same knack for simple vocal repetition as Eddy Current Suppression Ring, to whom they're often compared. The songs on their self-titled debut LP peter out after a minute or two, but not before a few choice... Indiana Jones references ("Raiders") and moral quandaries ("I Can't Decide"). Their songs often feel like a race to determine what will fall apart first: the vocals, the words or the music.
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Beaches

Eternal Sphere

Beaches
2010 | Mexican Summer

Where they're from: Melbourne
What they're like: Beaches began as a social outlet for five women who kept finding themselves at the same shows. Anchored by three guitarists, they dabble in an assortment of genres at their leisure: jangle, surf, Krautrock, drone or psych. Five years passed between their self-titled debut and this year's She Beats, giving the band plenty of time to deepen their unique interplay. They still excel at instrumentals, yet... now their pop songs kill too. When Michael Rother (Neu!) asks to play guitar on your record, you know you're doing something right.
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And also check out…

Heavy Flow

Absolute Boys
2013 | Bedroom Suck Records / The Orchard
Hard Rubbish

Lower Plenty
2013 | Fire Records / The Orchard
Another Trick

Circle Pit
2010 | Major Label / Musicadium
Twerps

Twerps
2011 | Chapter Music / The Orchard
Racism

UV Race
2012 | In The Red / Revolver
Calendar Days

Dick Diver
2013 | Chapter Music / The Orchard
Gala Mill

The Drones
ATP Recordings
Jubelklänge - Beliebte Märsche

Algunder Musikkapelle
2006 | Algunder Musikkapelle / TuneCore
Eyes Like The Sky

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
2013 | Flightless / The Orchard
Listen Closelier

The Frowning Clouds
2010 | Independent / Musicadium
2

Ned Collette & Wirewalker
2012 | Fire Records / The Orchard
All Gone

Pop Singles
Night-People
Horses and Human Hands

Hoodlum Shouts
2013 | Poison City Records / The Orchard
Old Life

Mere Women
2012 | tenzenmen
Post Ending//Pre Completion

Useless Children
2012 | Iron Lung Records / Believe Digital
Dire Dish

Angel Eyes
2011 | EP/SINGLE
Ways of Being

Rites Wild
2012 | Not Not Fun / Revolver
Josie

Go Violets
2013 | Go Violets / TuneCore
Solarium Down The Causeway

Witch Hats
2010 | Z-Man Records / CD Baby
Look Forward to Nothing

Kitchen's Floor
2011 | Siltbreeze / Revolver
Playin' In Time With the Deadbeat

Slug Guts
2012 | Sacred Bones Records / S.C. Distribution
Split With Wet Hair EP

Naked on the Vague
Night-People
It's You

Holy Balm
2012 | Not Not Fun / Revolver
Ex Tropical

Lost Animal
2013 | Hardly Art / Sub Pop Records
Comfort

Splashh
2013 | Kanine Records

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Omar

Bill Brewster — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 10:00:47 +0000

Over three decades in music, British soul singer Omar has seen as many lows as he has career-defining highs. He made his name with the 1990s breakthrough single “There’s Nothing Like This,” which blew up in London’s underground acid jazz scene before being picked up by Gilles Peterson’s Talkin’ Loud label. Although he never matched its commercial success, he went on to release a series of mature albums that secured his place as a soul heavyweight, collaborating with everyone from Stevie Wonder to Erykah Badu, and earning an MBE for services to music in 2012.

But he has also suffered the sort of bad luck that would end lesser careers. His last album Sing (If You Want It) took five years to come out in the UK, after the label went bankrupt the week of its scheduled release; it was eventually released in 2011 on Tru Thoughts. His 2006 single “It’s So” suffered a similar fate, despite being a hit in the garage clubs. But perhaps Omar’s biggest misfortune was to be a soul singer from Kent. It’s hard not to think that if he had been born in the US, he would be a global star by now.

The Man is Omar’s first album in seven years, and it’s a rich, soulful collection featuring guests including Caron Wheeler of Soul 2 Soul, Germany’s Hidden Jazz Quartett and Pino Palladino. To celebrate its release, Bill Brewster asked Canterbury’s most famous soul export to reveal 10 things you probably didn’t know about him.

1. He’s met Prince Charles.

I was made a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for services to music last year, and I had to go to Buckingham Palace to receive my medal. It was supposed to be awarded by the Queen but she was sick so Prince Charles did the honors. I’ve met him several times and we always have a laugh. The first time was in South Africa. You know that famous picture of Nelson Mandela, The Spice Girls and Prince Charles? I’m actually there, too. They cropped me out to fit that bunch in. He asked me to drop off a copy of my album to the Palace, which I did last week, so I hope he’s enjoying it.

2. Stevie Wonder has said, “I’d like to be Omar when I grow up.”

I first met Stevie back in 1988. My old manager Keith was Stevie’s UK representative so I had an inroad there and he gave Stevie a copy of my second album. We kept in touch and I ended up doing a TV show in France with him, where we sang together. Afterwards the interviewer asked him about me and, as a joke, he said, “When I grow up I want to be Omar.” He’d said he wanted to write me something but we didn’t actually get into the studio together until 2000. He called me and said, “I’m in town, let’s hang out.” So for the next two weeks we went to restaurants, clubs and hotels together and eventually the studio, where he put down this groove that became “Feeling You”, which was released on Sing (If You Want To) .

3. His dad, Byron Lye-Fook, jammed with Jimi Hendrix and played with the Rolling Stones.

My dad was a session player in the ’60s and ’70s and he played for artists like Bob Andy and Marcia Griffiths. He’s told me stories of playing with the Rolling Stones, Doris Troy and Bob Marley and jamming with Jimi Hendrix. He set up two labels on his own: Jah Lion, which released my brother’s band Burning Bush, and Kongo Dance, which released my debut single. He’s one of these guys who just gets on with it. He had a Volkswagen van and he just loaded it up with white labels and sold releases to record shops that way.

4. He was once a classical tuba player.

I started out playing brass instruments and percussion. My next-door neighbor had a beat-up old cornet that I used to take to school. From there I went to the baritone euphonium, tuba, piano, guitar, then drums. I became principal percussionist of the Kent County Youth Orchestra and ended up in the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I fucking hated it. Sitting and listening to brass for two hours, waiting for your triangle to come in at bar 128. I left after one term.

5. He released his first single when he was 16.

It was called “Mr. Postman.” It was the first release on my dad’s label and I hated it after two weeks. Absolutely hated it. It was around the time of Five Star and I had to go and do PAs with them. I remember having go on after them, so the venues would be emptying out as I was playing. It wasn’t a good experience.

6. He’s recorded a Stranglers song.

I recorded “Golden Brown” because it was one of the first singles I ever bought with my own money. I love the rhythm of it — it’s in 7/8 time — the sentiment and the chords. Funnily enough I met Hugh Cornwell, who wrote it, and he said it was the best version anyone had done so I was as pleased as punch about that.

7. He’s collaborated with more people than the Vichy regime.

In 1997, I spent some time in L.A. doing an album and a lot of things happened. I played with [legendary jazz drummer] Harvey Mason, and wrote a song for my favorite singer, Syreeta Wright. When I was working with the producer David Frank, he said, “[Grammy-nominated composer] Jeff Lorber is a friend of mine.” So when he came round to David’s house we were jamming in the studio. Then we went round to Jeff’s house and while we were there the brass section from Tower Of Power were in the studio. And this was same time I was working with Lamont Dozier. I’ve been very blessed.

8. Eryka Badu has cited him as an influence.

Erykah came to London and asked if she could meet me. I decided to do a version of “Be Thankful for What You Got” and I said, “Listen, I’ve got this track I think you’d be great on.” She came and she blessed me with that. But then the label was giving me problems over it, so we got another version done by Angie Stone. Then the label changed their mind and I had two fantastic versions of it!

9. His Fela Kuti-influenced 2004 song “It’s So” was an unlikely UK garage hit.

That tune was a complete accident. It started off in one direction, influenced by Fela Kuti, then I went to Notting Hill Carnival and was inspired to put a bit of a soca feel to it in the beats. Once the tune was finished, I knew it was going be a great tune to dance to, but I had no idea it would end up where it did. So when I heard it was big in the funky house clubs, getting rewinds four or five times a night, I couldn’t believe it. I just make music for people to vibe off.

10. He’s big in Indonesia.

I went to Indonesia in 2007, I’d never been there before. It took us a day and a half to get there and we were only there for five hours. There were about 2,000 people at the gig; I started playing “There’s Nothing Like This” and the place went crazy, with everyone singing the words. Wow, man. It really hit me when I got to the airport and I saw my face on the side of a taxi. That’s the beauty of the internet, your fans can find you.

The Spawn of Sabbath: 10 Bands That Followed Black Sabbath’s Unholy Template

Ryan Reed — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:00:18 +0000

Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut, 1970′s Black Sabbath, set the unholy blueprint: Tony Iommi’s blood-curling riffs, Ozzy Osbourne’s demonic howl, and the versatile rhythms of bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward. Even still, few could have predicted just how influential that particular sound would be: More than 40 years later, even as metal has splintered into a dizzying array of sub-genres (doom-metal, post-metal, sludge-metal, prog-metal), Sabbath’s black-magic mojo looms larger than ever. Fortunately, the classic line-up (minus Ward) reunited for this year’s 13, returning to the epic, occult-conjuring sound of their ’70s prime. In honor of this return to form, we’ve traced Sabbath’s sonic lineage through 10 modern albums — starting with the iconic source.

Black Sabbath

13

Black Sabbath
2013 | Republic Records

Who they are: Formed in Birmingham, England in 1968, Black Sabbath assaulted rock's flower-power landscape like a kamikaze. Their demonic, riff-heavy style was an instant commercial success, despite scathing reviews — and when "metal" became a critical adjective, Sabbath defined it. Throughout endless line-up shifts (including the underrated '80s era with vocalist Ronnie James Dio) and occasional duds (1995's Forbidden, with its regrettable Ice-T cameo), guitarist Tommy Iommi has remained at the... forefront, steering the ship toward blackest possible waters.

How they sound: The Sabbath Sound is monolithic in scope: distorted, dissonant and bluesy, with a grim low-end and a theatrical demon wail up front.

Sabbath moment: The band's 1970 classic Paranoid remains the cornerstone of the Sabbath sound — all newcomers should start there. But 13 is Sabbath at their most classically Sabbath-y. The peak is "God is Dead?," a lurching slow build from trippy atmospherics to a classic, full-frontal stomp, topped off by a vintage Iommi solo.
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Electric Wizard

Dopethrone

Electric Wizard
2001 | The Music Cartel / The Orchard

Who they are: This Dorset, England quartet was born in 1993, quickly rising to the forefront of the blossoming doom-metal movement. Fun Fact: Their band's name is formed from blending the titles of two Sabbath songs: "Electric Funeral" and "The Wizard."

How they sound: Electric Wizard specialize in a particularly sludgy brand of stoner-metal, with lead vocalist and guitarist Jus Oborn romanticizing the thrills of Satan, science fiction and weed.

Sabbath moment: These guys... clearly worship at the Altar of Sabbath. "Vinum Sabbathi" is a riveting example: lurching tempos, devilish vocals and de-tuned storm clouds of distortion. It sounds like prime Sabbath — if they got stoned and tried to soundtrack a B-level horror flick.
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Mastodon

The Hunter

Mastodon
2011 | Reprise

Who they are: These Southern prog-metal warriors formed in Atlanta in 2000. Thirteen years later, they're unpredictable critic darlings — and a metal institution.

How they sound: Their early albums (like 2001's Remission) were sludgy and relentless, built on Brann Dailor's explosive, snare-heavy drumming and Brent Hinds's virtuosic guitar. Taking major influence from '70s prog, they've gradually evolved into a weirder, wilder band — best exemplified by the dizzying sprawl of 2012's The... Hunter.

Sabbath moment: "Curl of the Burl" is a lost Sabbath epic, built on a swampy, winding guitar groove and Hinds's gothic, Ozzy-esque lyrical imagery. Hellishly heavy.
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Royal Thunder

CVI

Royal Thunder
2012 | Relapse Records / The Orchard

Who they are: Guitarist Josh Weaver formed this alt-metal outfit in 2006, finding a unique niche in Atlanta's impressive metal scene. Their debut full-length, CVI, was released in 2012 by Relapse Records.

How they sound: Too heavy to be alt-rock (with Weaver's menacing guitar drama), too pretty and melody-driven to be pure metal (with MIny Parsonz's soulful alto), Royal Thunder are the best of both sonic worlds.

Sabbath moment: "Snake and Shift" is their... Sabbath Moment (and their finest moment, period). Opening in a black hole of feedback, this nine-minute behemoth builds to a brooding, trippy groove, Parsonz channeling her spookiest Ozzy inflections.
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Blood Ceremony

The Eldritch Dark

Blood Ceremony
2013 | Metal Blade Records / The Orchard

Who they are: This Toronto quintet formed in 2006, making an immediate impression throughout Europe with their witchy, folky brand of metal. Three studio albums aside, they've made their name on the road, touring with other Sabbath spawn like Ghost and Electric Wizard.

How they sound: Guitarist Sean Kennedy once labelled the band's sound as a "folkier Sabbath," which is a fairly accurate description. With their proggy interplay (not to mention Alia O'Brien's... elegant flute lines), Blood Ceremony mix their Sabbath-y heaviness with the eccentricity of Jethro Tull.

Sabbath moment: "Witchwood," from 2013's The Eldritch Dark, is the band's Sabbath-y show-stopper: a funky blues riff, mystical organ drone, O'Brien channeling Ozzy's black-magic howl.
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Opeth

Heritage

Opeth
2011 | Roadrunner Records

Who they are: Opeth is the brainchild of Swedish metal icon Mikael Åkerfeldt, who founded the band in 1990, building an almost-mythic legacy over the course of ten studio albums.

How they sound: Opeth have one of the most distinctive styles in metal history, blending full-on death-metal with pastoral folk, jazz-fusion and prog. Åkerfeldt is a vocal chameleon, jumping from guttural growls to angelic croons in the course of a single song.

Sabbath moment:... "The Devil's Orchard," a standout from 2011's Heritage, is a Sabbath dead-ringer. "God is dead!," Åkerfeldt cries over spook-house B3 organ and a metallic crunchy snake-coil riff.
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Pallbearer

Sorrow And Extinction

Pallbearer
2012 | Profound Lore / Revolver

Who they are: Pallbearer's exquisite doom-metal was born in 2008 — in the unlikely metal hub of Little Rock, Arkansas. Their hugely hyped debut album, Sorrow and Extinction, was released in 2012.

How they sound: The band's majestic, psychedelic metal conjures images of foggy swamps and corroding gothic castles. It's a transfixing sound, built on creeping rhythms, sludgy guitar harmonies and Brett Campbell's Ozzy-inflected cries.

Sabbath moment: Look no further than "Foreigner," the 12-minute... opening opus from Sorrow and Extinction. Over murky, earth-shattering distortion, Campbell moans masterfully — like the high-priest of hell.
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The Sword

Apocryphon

The Sword
2012 | Razor & Tie Label

Who they are: This excellent Austin quartet formed in 2003, drawing major influence from Sabbath, among other metal icons like Deep Purple and Iron Maiden. Their fourth LP, 2012's Apocryphon, managed to crash the Billboard Top 20.

How they sound: The Sword specialize in vintage, Dungeons and Dragons-style metal, defined by the harmonized dual guitar work-outs of John D. Cronise and Kyle Shutt.

Sabbath moment: A propulsive highlight from 2008's Gods of... the Earth, "Maiden, Mother & Crone" is the band's quintessential Sabbath homage: razor-sharp blues-metal riffage, deceptively funky drumming, and Cronise's vampiric moan.
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Isis

Panopticon

Isis
2004 | Ipecac Recordings / The Orchard

Who they are: Post-metal icons Isis formed in 1997, starting out in Boston before relocating to L.A. They released five full-length albums before their 2010 break-up. Fun Fact: The band covered Sabbath's "Hand of Doom" on their 1996 EP, Sawblade.

How they sound: Isis is not a conventional "metal" band in any way: Their songs veer jarringly from effects-driven post-rock to doom-driven atmospherics to psychedelic ambience, never pausing long enough to be pigeonholed.

Sabbath... moment: "Grinning Mouths," the unholy closer from 2004's Panopticon is mammoth close to a mammoth album. Jeff Caxide's bass and Aaron Harris's kit build a funky, tribal groove, as the guitars weave dramatically over top. Half-angelic, half-demonic — completely absorbing.
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Ghost B.C.

Infestissumam

Ghost B.C.
2013 | Seven Four Entertainment / Republic

Who they are: These mysterious metal-heads formed in Linköping, Sweden in 2008, raising eyebrows with their "Nameless Ghoul" personas and doom-laden epics.

How they sound: In keeping with their sacrilegious visuals, Ghost B.C. Conjure an epic brand of demonic metal, blending choral vocal arrangements with primal distortion and proggy atmospherics.

Sabbath moment: Ghost B.C.'s Sabbath Moment is "Con Clavi Con Dio," a blend of guttural riffage, spastic bass chug, and frontman Papa Emeritus's... eerie harmonies.
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Five Essential Roscoe Mitchell Recordings

Seth Colter Walls — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 14:24:06 +0000

Saxophonist and composer Roscoe Mitchell has been at the forefront of innovation in jazz — hell, in music in general — ever since his landmark 1966 recording Sound. With that debut, he helped usher in a less constantly frenetic avant-garde. Though Mitchell and his cohorts from Chicago’s South Side revolutionaries in the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) could bust reeds and pound with the best experimental screamers, they also thrilled to the spare, austerely gentle classical modernism of Anton Webern (for example).

Sound, along with subsequent titles from the “Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble,” issued by the Delmark label, would the proving ground for a band that would eventually take on a different, better-known name: The Art Ensemble of Chicago. While serving a year as the toasts of France in 1969-70, the band cut more than a dozen records. By the time they rotated back to the U.S., the Chicago scene that had influenced Mitchell in his post-Army days had already made significant inroads in New York. Mitchell hasn’t looked back since, whether as a teacher at Mills College (where he currently has the Darius Milhaud chair in composition) or as a gigging and recording musician. This year has already seen two fantastic new albums from Mitchell: the classically-oriented Not Yet, on Mutable Music, and a record of duets with drummer-pianist Tyshawn Sorey. (Trumpeter Hugh Ragin appears on a few cuts, too.)

Here are five of Mitchell’s essential recordings.

A Jackson in Your House / Message to Our Folks / Reese and the Smooth Ones

Art Ensemble Of Chicago
2013 | Charly / The Orchard

Three hugely important 1969 albums — some of them infrequently available digitally — by Roscoe Mitchell's breakout project, the Art Ensemble of Chicago are collected here in a high-value, no-duh purchase. (Look at that price point!) The title track of Jackson reveals the band's postmodern mashup strategy: after the opening, jump-cut switches between free playing and modern composition, the band transitions to a New Orleans-flavored outro (one that is sincerely soulful, not... mocking). Message is even better, and somehow more varied: "Old Time Religion" blends gospel and drone textures; "Dexterity" underlines the band's connection to Bird; while "Rock Out," as an abstraction of popular song-form, feels like avant-jazz's answer to White Heat-era Velvet Underground. Reese is one long improvisation, split into two tracks, that is particularly worthy for the noise-guitar freakout on the second side of the original LP.
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Roscoe Mitchell And The Sound & Space Ensembles

Roscoe Mitchell
1984 | Black Saint / CAM

In which the polymath Mitchell embraces the emergent sounds of hip-hop as well as those of late 20th-century chamber music styles — on the same album. Four of the six tracks here are austere, small ensemble compositions (some of them featuring modern-opera singer Tom Buckner). But two uptempo groovers, "You Wastin' My Tyme" and "Linefine Lyon Seven" show that, some 15 years after the Art Ensemble created R&B-inflected avant-jazz jams like "Rock... Out" and "Theme De Yoyo," our hero can still return to the wellspring of pop inspiration. The former even offers a chance for Mitchell to try his hand at appropriating the good-humor cadences of early NYC rap. He works it!
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Solo [3]

Roscoe Mitchell
2004 | Mutable Music / The Orchard

This is a late-period tour de force: three different "solo" albums, packaged together. The opening "album," subtitled Tech Ritter and the Megabytes, opens with a multi-tracked Mitchell (on different horns), blasting through a staccato composition called "The Little Big Horn 2." Two long, proper solo improvisations follow (featuring various extended techniques, circular breathing, the works); while the "Tech Ritter"-titled pieces bring the multi-tracked intensity back. The more familiar, purely alto-saxophone album starts... with the lovely "Nemus." The final album, a percussion-heavy suite that harkens back to some of the Art Ensemble's "little instrument" pieces, isn't as dynamic — but the set as a whole brings welcome evidence of Mitchell's conceptual, performative and compositional power in a new century.
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Far Side

Roscoe Mitchell
2010 | ECM

How influential and well-respected is Roscoe Mitchell, at this point? Well, on this live date for ECM, the two pianists in his octet are Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn (arguably the two biggest names in contemporary jazz piano). The rumbling, droning opening suite of three pieces takes its time winding up — but explodes in a gratifying way at the midway point. (Hearing Taborn going nuts behind Mitchell's soprano playing is a... singular highlight of modern jazz.) The "Quintet" and "Trio" pieces are shorter, and more consistently driven by pulse, while "Ex Flower Five" is driven by the stellar piano power on offer.
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Not Yet

Roscoe Mitchell
2013 | Mutable Music / The Orchard

This is Roscoe Mitchell's finest classical album yet. And, interestingly, it's one on which his own horn playing is absent; he's intent on fully inhabiting the role of composer. It's no secret how a modern conceptualist gets good performances of fiercely difficult, experimental works: you get a chair in composition at a major music school, draw interested students to your side, and present concerts. Mitchell has done that as a chair of... composition studies at Mills College. And his student Jacob Zimmerman does the teacher proud in the skittering, sheets-of-sound atonality of the title track (for saxophone and piano), as well as in the sax-quartet arrangement of the infamous Mitchell piece "Nonaah." Some more senior eminences drop by to tackle a chamber orchestra version of "Nonaah," also. When paired with the finest recorded example we have of Mitchell's writing for string quartet ("9/9/99 with Cards"), this album becomes an essential document of a portion of the composer's legacy.
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20 Acts to See at Bonnaroo 2013

eMusic Editorial Staff — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 17:11:31 +0000

Headed to Tennessee but still not sure who you want to see? Fear not: We’ve boiled the brain-busting Bonnaroo schedule down to 20 essential sets.

Paul McCartney

RAM

Paul McCartney
2012 | Hear Music

It's easy to be skeptical about the notion of seeing Paul McCartney live. For one thing, he's the Beatle most prone to cheese (even if he's more experimental than he's typically given credit for), he has a history of being excruciatingly on-the-nose, and on top of all that, he wrote "Rocky Raccoon." Here's the thing, though: Paul McCartney is fantastic live. His shows generally run about three hours with no... breaks, he expertly weaves in lesser-known tracks to keep things interesting and he keeps hokey banter to a minimum. Oh, also, he has so many hits. How many hits? So many hits that he played "Your Mother Should Know" and "Lovely Rita" for the first time last month. So many hits that he could skip playing "Let it Be" and "Sgt. Pepper" and you'd still be like, "He played a lot of hits!" His band is astonishingly tight, they don't overplay, the delivery is tasteful and toothy and even charmingly ragged in spots. Oh, and also: he's Paul McCartney. — J. Edward Keyes
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Bjork

Biophilia

Björk
2011 | Nonesuch

Twenty-seven years into her career, Bjork is running the risk of becoming a pop music Alexander the Great, weeping for there are no more worlds to conquer. She has reconfigured her sound in nearly every conceivable way, moving from adventurous electro on the still-classic Post through skewed orch-pop (Vespertine), voice-only compositions (Medulla) and globe-gobbling world music (Volta). She is one of a very few musicians — there are maybe three of them... worldwide — whose rare failures are even interesting, because they at least display evidence of ambition and novel ideas. That ambition extends to her staging. A run of shows at the Hall of Science in Queens, New York featured specially-constructed instruments and a loose theme (including voiceover narration) about the destructive power of nature. How much of that she'll carry into her festival performances remains to be seen, but if history is any indication, an equal won’t be found all weekend. — JEK
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Wilco

The Whole Love

Wilco
2011 | Anti/Epitaph

Wilco are a perennial music-fest favorite: sunny sing-alongs, lengthy Nels Cline guitar solos, and witty banter from frontman Jeff Tweedy. There hasn't been any word of new music on the Chicago group's horizon (Tweedy's been busy producing sets from the likes of Low and Mavis Staples), but that just means fans can expect a wide-ranging mix of crowd faves and deep cuts alike. — Laura Leebove

R. Kelly

Write Me Back (Deluxe Version)

R. Kelly
2012 | RCA Records Label

When R. Kelly toured in 2007, he first appeared in silhouette, wearing a top hat, standing at the top of a giant staircase, underneath a neon sign that read "Mr. Showbiz." When he toured in 2010, his first appearance was in a five-minute black-and-white, note-perfect Casablanca-style short film. When he toured in 2012, he had two lackeys bring out an oversized white throne halfway through the show just so he could... sit and relax for a number. Simply put: R. Kelly is a showman, and the live setting is where he gets to indulge the frustrated musical theatre director within. Songs become set pieces (In '07, he performed "Feelin' On Yo Booty" as an aria, tongue firmly in cheek), the banter is tautly-scripted and generally hilarious, and Kells visibly relishes every indulgent flourish. To say nothing of the fact that he remains one of our greatest living male vocalists, that he sings live every time, and that even thirty seconds of hearing him reinforces the notion that he is the heir to greats like Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye — even if those two never used an extended jungle metaphor to sing about doin' it. — JEK
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Weird Al Yankovic

Alpocalypse

Weird Al Yankovic
2011 | Volcano

Here's a thing that you might not know about legendary song parodist and cultural icon Weird Al: He puts on a spectacular live show. Like, "It's Star Time" spectacular, with breathlessly executed transitions and peak-to-peak setlists and jokes and polka medleys all lined up one after the other. Weird Al is an entertainer, goddamnit, and if you've ever owned a single tape or Weird Al CD in your life, (and what portion... of the music-listening populace hasn't forked over cash for at least one Weird Al tape or CD?), standing in front of this man's live extravaganza is an easy way to feel good about the decisions you've made in life, for at least 45 minutes. — Jayson Greene
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Solange

True

Solange
2012 | Terrible Records / The Orchard

Solange Knowles released her first album in 2011, but it was last year that she truly broke out as more than just Bey's little sister. Her EP True is all dancefloor hits, from the funky, giggly start of "Losing You," to the nostalgic heartbreaker "Some Things Never Seem to Fucking Work," to the Daydream-era-Mariah Carey-channeling "Don't Let Me Down." — LL

Tom Petty

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
1991 | Rhino/Warner Bros.

Tom Petty occupies a curious place in the corridors of classic rock. He doesn't have the Weight of Legacy of the Stones or Dylan, nor the charisma or sense of purpose of Springsteen. He doesn't slot easily into any one format — he was initially marketed as a New Wave artist — even though his songs are staples of FM radio. And there's always been something smart-alecky about his demeanor and delivery... — he's the cut-up in the canon. All of this makes him surprisingly tricky to characterize; there's a clear cause/effect between his rootsier work and, say, Being There-era Wilco, but there's even more in the oft-cited similarity between "American Girl" and "Last Nite" by the Strokes. Which ends up making Tom Petty more like a rock 'n' roll Zelig — he's nearly everywhere you look, even if you don't notice until later, and he's logged more certifiable classics with a shrug and a smirk than some of his peers have done with gallons of sweat and overwork. You get the sense he'll still be here 60 years from now, looking approximately the same, just as consistent and just as rewarding. — JEK
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Kendrick Lamar

good kid, m.A.A.d city

Kendrick Lamar
2013 | Top Dawg / Aftermath / Interscope

Kendrick Lamar is a tiny stub of a man — standing onstage, he doesn't seem to come much past 5'4". But his quiet charisma widens out around him like a crop circle, and with his triumphant 2012 masterpiece good kid, m.A.A.d city still resonating in the air, he will likely arrive trailing clouds of rap-savior glory. Liquid, languorous songs like "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe" and "A.D.H.D." transform into shout-alongs when he's... onstage, and come prepared to rap along to every tongue-twisting verse: He usually gets heavy with the crowd participation. — JG
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Glen Hansard

Rhythm And Repose

Glen Hansard
2012 | Anti/Epitaph

Glen Hansard might come off as a total sad-sack on Rhythm and Repose, his brooding-but-gorgeous 2012 solo effort, but don't be fooled: The Irish singer/songwriter best known for his work in Once and The Frames is actually an incredibly charming and exciting performer. He's likely to perform with his band The Frames, and you never know who else he might bring on stage. — LL

A$AP Rocky

LONG.LIVE.A$AP

A$AP Rocky
2013 | A$AP Worldwide/Polo Grounds Music/RCA Records

The cocky grinning, gold-tooth French-braid Harlem 24-year-old A$AP Rocky might not have the poetic, old-soul flow of Rakim, for whom his parents named him, but he has something else entirely: a blinding flash, charm, and a perfectly calibrated sound that pours Houston syrup and high-fashion glitz onto NY rap's sturdy concrete bedrock. Live, he's usually surrounded by other A$APs, who help amp up the energy, and he is guaranteed to be wearing... something that makes him resemble a cross between a Fruit Roll-Up, a fashion model, and a Power Ranger. — JG
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Wu-Tang Clan

Enter The Wu-Tang Clan - 36 Chambers (Deluxe Version)

Wu Tang Clan
2007 | RCA Records Label

While everyone was busy crowing about Blur and Phoenix and the Stone Roses, the Wu-Tang Clan slipped in through the side virtually unannounced and walked away with Coachella 2013 in their back pocket. By all accounts their show in Indio Valley was one of the weekend's best — if not the best — all eight surviving members taking the stage, backed by a full orchestra and performing letter-perfect versions of their classics.... The group always had a sense of vision, even if it was sometimes overruled by their more anarchic impulses. But enough time has passed — a full two decades since game-changing debut Enter the Wu-Tang — that they've managed to make live perfectionism feel almost punk — instructional and justifiably haughty at the same time. These days, it's more surprising when all of the Clan members don't show up. — JEK
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Royal Thunder

Killer Mike

R.A.P. Music

Killer Mike
2012 | Williams Street Records

Killer Mike hasn't made a career habit of taking prisoners: Whether you're a Forbes list millionaire ("a whore's list," as far as he's concerned), a rapper like himself who is an "advertisement for agony and pain," or, god help you, Ronald Reagan ("I'll leave you with four words: I'm glad Reagan dead"), Mike has choice words for you. And the emphasis is on "choice": his bellowing, burly voice and big gut might... give the impression of someone heavy-footed and lumbering, but Mike can rap as nimbly as he does forcefully. Live, he will leave you feeling like the slab of meat in Rocky's freezer: tenderized, worked over. But in a good way. Also, if the gods are kind, his new confidante and best friend El-P will show up. — JG
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Tame Impala

Kacey Musgraves

Same Trailer Different Park

Kacey Musgraves
2013 | Mercury Nashville

Rising star Kacey Musgraves writes songs for folks who don't fit into the stereotypical right-leaning country-listening mold. In her biggest hit "Merry Go 'Round," she says it's OK to eschew small-town tradition by not being married with kids by 21, while "Follow Your Arrow" implores folks to "make lots of noise/ kiss lots of boys/ or kiss lots of girls, if that's something you're into." — LL

Mac DeMarco

2

Mac Demarco
2012 | Captured Tracks / SC Distribution

Mac DeMarco's grubby, Pigpen-Eagles version of yacht-pop might not prepare you for the full-blown, indie-rock-Andy-Kaufman hilarity of his live set; Mac is one of few humans on this planet who can make smirking assholery seem downright endearing and infectious. It helps that his bandmates are in on the fun, that they crack each other up, and that they play their often-shoddy instruments like gangbusters: in previous sets, I've seen them cover both... Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" and a Rammstein/Rob Zombie mash-up of "Du Hast Mich" and "Dragula." — JG
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Lucius

EP

Lucius
2013 | Mom & Pop Music / The Orchard

Lucius have only got an EP under their belts for now, but the group of folks dying to hear more from the Brooklyn outfit is growing quickly. They've got girl-group flare, strong harmonies, and a tight, polished band, fronted by vocalists Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig. And with the ladies' matching outfits, poufy updo's and soulful sass, their live shows are mesmerizing. — LL

Death Grips

The Money Store

Death Grips
2012 | Epic

It seemed for a moment like Death Grips was going to self-immolate almost as suddenly as they'd appeared. They cancelled a slew of live dates in the rush of adulation that followed their debut, they were dropped from their label after giving away its follow-up — which, incidentally, had a picture of a dick on the cover — for free, and force-of-nature drummer Zach Hill performed the group's SXSW set via Skype... (and apparently played his drum tracks on a laptop at this year's Sasquatch festival.) The thing is, though: They're still here, and MC Ride is still one of the most gripping and charismatic frontmen in hip-hop, delivering his verses with the ferocity of early hardcore. Every Death Grips show feels like a last gasp — all the more reason to see them while you still have the chance. — JEK
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Daniel Romano

Come Cry With Me

Daniel Romano
2013 | Normal Town Records

Singer/songwriter Daniel Romano hails from Canada but sounds like he's from America's Deep South as he writes old-school country ballads sung in a deep, Man-in-Black drawl. On his latest record, this year's aptly titled Come Cry With Me, there's a dirge about unrequited love, reflections on being a rejected middle child, and a rambling saga about getting a ride with a guy who calls himself Chicken Bill. — LL

White Lung

sorry

White Lung
2012 | Deranged Records / The Orchard

White Lung vocalist Mish Way is a human tornado, a blinding corkscrew of motion and sound ripping up the center of her songs like the Tasmanian Devil turned loose in the middle of a Safeway. It's the musical equivalent of being grabbed by the shoulders and throttled repeatedly. Which is a great thing. White Lung's second full-length Sorry inflicts more damage than a runaway rotary blade, and their live show is just... as devastating. It's a blast of fire and fury, an endless barrage of megaton cannonballs aimed directly at your throat. — JEK
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Garage Rock’s Next Generation: 10 Bands to Watch

Lenny Kaye — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 14:26:02 +0000

I’m at Psychfest in Austin, levitating around the fairgrounds, waiting for the Black Angels to come on between Roky Erikson of the 13th Floor Elevators and the long-awaited reunion of the Moving Sidewalks (featuring Billy Gibbons of Z.Z. Top), when someone asks me the what-if question: What if there was no album named Nuggets 40 years ago, in that interregnum before garage-rock had a name and place to park the guitar? I can only reply that its spirit is eternal and elemental, and I was lucky to ride its moment; but it’s hardly confined to the Then (good band name). Many are the new bands who renew themselves in Nuggets‘ wellspring, who sift and take the music into the present tense and often, though nodding to the psychic energies of what came before, propel it ever further into the next dimension. When spirit guide J. Edward Keyes asked me to test-drive the current hybrid vehicles, all new names on my horizon, without the GPS of where they come from or why, I got behind the wheel, opened the garage door and went for a spin.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Jacco Gardner
2013 | Trouble In Mind Records / TuneCore

Lithe and airy, this evokes West Coast psychedelia at its most pastoral, mingled with some of the whimsy of early Pink Floyd. Gardner's emphasis on gentle melody, harmonic confluence and invitation-to-waltz time ("Watching The Moon") makes for a pleasurable woodland romp that evokes a child-like sense of wonder. Acoustic guitars and keyboard textures that run the gamut from wheezy to mellotron add to the feel of fantasia.
Sonic Forefather: Sagittarius, Gentle Soul
Dreams in the Rat House

Shannon and the Clams
2013 | Hardly Art / Sub Pop Records

Splitting the difference between primitivo-snarl ("Bed Rock") and the doo-wop ("Ozma" and "Into A Dream"), Shannon and her Clams straddle the line between fore-and-aft '60s musical genres. The arrangements are tuneful, the guitar lines crisp ("In The River"), and Shannon's rough-hewn voice ("In The Rat House") adds an askew note to the band's bomp-and-stomp. Closing the album with a version of Del Shannon's "Runaway" seems a perfect historical marker.
Sonic Forefather: Goldie and... the Gingerbreads, Chocolate Watch Band
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Leaving Atlanta

Gentleman Jesse
2012 | Douchemaster / Revolver

With the jangle of hard-strummed electric guitars and an irresistible forward motion, Gentleman Jesse has as much Eddie and the Hot Rods and even the Jam in their gig bag as overt '60s references. "You Give Me Shivers" is straight ahead and pure of heart; "We Gotta Get Out Of Here" is a sing-a-long worthy of continuing long past the chorus fade. "Frostbite" has the most garage-rock overtones, but this is more... a matter of texture than direct reference. Songs like these feel timeless in any era.
Sonic Forefather: The Leaves, Standells
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More For The Masses

The People's Temple
2012 | Hozac / Revolver

Awash in reverb and mood enhancers, the People's Temple create an atmosphere truly "Texas Revisited," embracing trippy International Artists like the Red Krayola and Bubble Puppy, bone-shaking a tambourine ("Nevermore," "Looter's Game"), and mumbo-jumboing poetics (House of Fools"). Alternately soaring, dislocating, unsettling and uplifting, the album culminates in the phantasmagoria of "(Dark Dreams) Distant Memories," a hymn to the glories found in a millisecond's delay by way of Jane's Addiction. Pass the... Kool-Aid.
Sonic Forefather: 13th Floor Elevators
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Love Visions

Nobunny
2012 | Almost Ready Records / TuneCore

A cwazy wabbit plays wock 'n' woll. Opening with the familiar Human Beinz' riffage of "Nobunny Loves You," this wackoid group is in it for the wild card. Goofing on themselves as well as you, it's easy to overlook the songcraft and clever repartee in "I Am A Girlfriend," the Ramoniac "Tina Goes To Work," and the most perfect of shredding guitar solos in "I Know, I Know." Counting backwards... from '70s punk — as in "Somewhere New (The Yolks)" — ace cut honors are shared by "Boneyard," with its precision chopper chords, and the plaintive cry of "Mess Me Up."
Sonic Forefather: The Music Explosion, the Third Rail
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Peach Kelli Pop

Peach Kelli Pop
2013 | Burger Records / Redeye

A winning combination of gal-group sassiness and chirping vocals, Peach Kelli Pop's shake-it-up shimmy couldn't be more infectious. It's as if the Angels of "My Boyfriend's Back" took up surfing ("True Blue") and then got dolled up for a night at the local punk emporium ("Red Leather") dancing to the Go-Go's. Garage more in spirit than specific homage, there is an unleashed joy in these tracks, the trinity of three rotating chords... and the way they infinitely fit together.
Sonic Foremother: The Kingsmen, Strawberry Alarm Clock
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4: Into Unknown

Human Eye
2013 | Goner / Revolver

As amplifiers got larger and garage got heavier as the '60s progressed, heralding the coming reign of '70s metal, the soundscape turned primordial, heading toward psychic overload. In tracks like "Faces In The Shadows" and "Gettin' Mean," Human Eye show no fear in the face of speakers crying for mercy and vocals strangulating ("Buzzin' Flies"). There is a moment that lulls you into thinking they might let up their audio assault in... "Surface of Pluto," but then a fuzz-wave kicks in and the stun returns in all its orbital glory. Turn up the sludge.
Sonic Forefather: Blue Cheer
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LP

Acid Baby Jesus
2011 | Slovenly Recordings / CD Baby

Big and brutal, the feedback sustains and pound-for-pounding percussion and distorto vocals signal that this is a group no stranger to audio hallucination. "Tyrannosaurus Rex" has a jurassic joy in breaking through its sedimentary layers, "Homo Sapiens" is positively Neanderthal, while even an "Old Fart" – to crib an ABJ song title -- like myself can appreciate the fountain of youth that their take on classic lysergic haze signifies. "Mesmerized" has a... dizzying revolve that is not far from Velvet Underground territory, while "Horse" quotes from the Brit Invasion before the inevitable rave-up.
Sonic Forefather: The Sonics
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Pagan Hiss

The Hussy
2013 | Southpaw / Revolver

Clattery and amphetamine-amped, this garage-on-speed ("Hate This Town," "Right Quick," "Far Removed") is similar to what transpired in the '70s when punk took its inspiration from the garage vernacular and hot-rodded it. The Hussy are a headlong rush, and "Woodland Creature," with its indelible guitar hook, shows they full well know to where they're hurtling. There are a couple of songs about mortality, "Dying" and "Dead To Me," but this band's sense... of resurrection shows that this music has afterlife to spare.
Sonic Forefather: Gonn, Amboy Dukes
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Radar Eyes

Radar Eyes
2012 | Hozac / Revolver

Brandishing a 12-string ("Miracle"), a thick Farfisa-esque underlay ("Disconnection"), and a melodic flair ("I Am"), Radar Eyes covers all the elements of what made the garage sound so universal, able to be taken in any direction. "Side of the Road" even moves into Suicide territory with its hypnotic synths and ominous vocal, while "Prairie Puppies" takes it even further with the feel of the Jesus and Mary Chain.
Sonic Forefather: Clefs of Lavender... Hill,Third Bardo
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15 Essential Box Sets

Douglas Wolk — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:48:36 +0000

Sometimes a simple sampling won’t do — you want to dive in deep and explore every last corner of an artist’s discography, or every forgotten single in a major musical movement. That’s what the box set is made for: It’s a mini-musical history lesson in one compact package. We asked Douglas Wolk to comb through our digital crates, and he emerged with 15 of the best. — eMusic Editorial Staff

The Chess Box

Etta James
2000 | Geffen

When Etta James came to Chess Records in 1960, she'd already had a couple of hit singles, but the music she recorded over the next decade and a half makes up the core of her legacy: torchy, sexy rhythm and blues with elegant arrangements that counterpoint the grit and burn of her voice. James was a fixture on black radio for most of the '60s, although her hits scarcely crossed over to... a pop audience until decades later. The '70s material surveyed on the third disc finds her reaching out to a rock and country repertoire — a trio of Randy Newman songs are exactly dark and bitter enough for her — and showing off a vocal mastery that had only deepened with time.
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What It Is! Funky Soul And Rare Grooves [1967-1977]

Various Artists
2006 | Rhino

Besides their artist-based compilations, Rhino Records has released a series of boxes that neatly define musical moments, and this is a thrilling one. What It Is! isn't a collection of R&B hits, as such, although it includes a handful of very big hits. It's a collection of grooves that still sound amazing 35-45 years after they were recorded — the sort of thing DJs spend their lives digging through bins to find.... Some of them are familiar from hip-hop samples; some are local bands' covers of national hits; some are major artists' minor marvels. And all of them are hard not to dance to.
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Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Live 1975-85 (Display Box)

Bruce Springsteen
2002 | Columbia

At a moment when live albums had become the province of bands trying to fill out their contracts in a hurry, Springsteen set a high-water mark for them with this five-LP set. It's an epic retrospective of one of the great American rock bands in its element, scattered with original songs and covers that the Boss had never recorded before. If Springsteen's specialty as a songwriter is turning working-class experience into mythology,... his specialty as a performer is projecting intimate storytelling to a stadium, and Live/1975-85 tells a story too: the rise of the E Street Band's presence over the course of a decade, from a 500-seat club to the L.A. Coliseum.
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Biograph

Bob Dylan
1997 | Columbia

As brilliant and perverse as Dylan's best records, Biograph ditches every pre-existing judgment about the first 20 years of his recorded career, reaches into his songbag to grab fistfuls of hits and album tracks and bootleg classics and then-unknown oddities, and re-assembles them according to their lyrical themes. Even the most familiar songs sound fresh again in the context of their neighbors; the slightest throwaways suddenly reveal their aspects of grace. It's... an argument for understanding Dylan's whole body of work as a unit, and a riveting assessment of his obsessions and ingenious, mercurial songwriting.
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Fire In My Bones : Raw + Rare + Otherworldly African-American Gospel, 1944-2007

Various Artists
Tompkins Square

Assembled by gospel expert (and eMusic contributor) Mike McGonigal, Fire In My Bones documents an entire world of music that had become lost to time: the post-war black gospel records that mostly came out on tiny independent labels and were sold strictly to the faithful. The sound of African American sacred music, it turns out, intersects with secular pop of many kinds, from blues to funk to country and beyond; even... more than that, though, it's got its own immensely powerful traditions of singing and playing, and a lot of these songs sound like nothing else, even the canonical gospel classics of the '50s and '60s. The box's subtitle is right on about how raw these recordings are, but there's something extraordinary about every one of them.
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Star Time

James Brown
2009 | Polydor

The greatest rhythmic innovator of the 20th century had a career that's almost impossible to summarize — there wouldn't be enough room to include all his hits if this box were twice as long — but Star Time is the definitive portrait of his best work, from his scalding 1956 debut "Please, Please, Please" to his 1984 salute to the hip-hop world that idolized him, "Unity." It traces the evolution of Brown's... genius, pulling together the strands that went into his invention of funk, displaying the creative process behind a few of his biggest hits, and letting his deepest late '60s and early '70s jams stretch out to their full length.
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Hot Fives And Sevens

Louis Armstrong
2001 | JSP Records / The Orchard

Jazz as we know it starts here, not with a history lesson but with a celebration. Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven were studio bands with shifting membership; between 1925 and 1928, they recorded a pile of tracks that were built around Armstrong's improvisational genius, refining New Orleans-style jazz into thrilling three-minute inventions. Armstrong plays trumpet and cornet, and occasionally unleashes his candy-gravel voice — "Heebie Jeebies" might be the first... recorded example of scat singing. This box is filled out by 1928-30 recordings that built on the success of the Hot Fives and Sevens and are just about as much fun.
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With The Lights Out - Box Set

Nirvana
2011 | Geffen

For most bands who only recorded three studio albums, a three-disc retrospective of demos, covers and outtakes would be excessive. For this one, it's revelatory. With the Lights Out traces Nirvana's blazing path from ravenous punks covering Led Zep at their first show to really loud Leadbelly fans boggling at their sudden success to their final months as tense, jittery rock heroes grappling with more raw power than they knew what to... do with. All that power, as it turns out, meant that even their throwaways and unfinished sketches pretty much blow the walls down. If this set were the only recorded evidence that Nirvana had existed, they'd still be an important band — although maybe just the cult act they kind of wanted to be.
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Honky Tonk Girl: The Loretta Lynn Collection

Loretta Lynn
1994 | Geffen

She's not kidding about the title: The First Lady of Country Music has stuck so closely to the honky-tonk musical template that 62 of these 70 tracks, spanning 1960-88, are under three minutes long. (The first time she crosses the 180-second barrier is halfway through the box: 1970's epochal, autobiographical "Coal Miner's Daughter.") Even so, she's also one of country's great innovators, on the strength of the sharp, funny, overtly feminist lyrics... in her own songs and the songs she's covered. Pretty much all of Lynn's substantial solo hits are here, as well as a handful of her duets with Ernest Tubb and Conway Twitty.
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Def Jam Music Group Tenth Year Anniversary Box Set

Various Artists
1995 | Def Jam/RAL

Def Jam was to the late '80s what Motown was to the mid '60s: the label that turned the cutting edge of black pop into the sound of young America. This box came out when Def Jam was 12 years old or so, its sequencing's not quite chronological, and the Anthrax/Public Enemy remake of "Bring the Noise" is the only sign that Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons's label ever reached out beyond... hip-hop and R&B. And so what? For hip-hop heads, this stuff is holy writ, the document of an era when every rapper had a chance to reinvent the music with every single. For everyone else, it's a four-hour party.
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The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings

John Coltrane
1997 | Impulse! Records

This four-disc monument might be the most narrowly focused of great boxed sets — recorded over the course of four nights in early November, 1961, just as Coltrane entered a period of incredible creative fertility. He was experimenting with the sound of his group (the core quartet is supplemented with appearances by wild-card Eric Dolphy and a handful of other musicians); "Chasin' the Trane" has only the hint of a theme, and... the exquisite ballad "Naima" gets its melody turned inside out. Producer Bob Thiele's recordings of these shows were excerpted for an album and a half in the '60s, but every track here displays Coltrane and company pushing at the boundaries of what jazz could be.
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Hitsville USA, The Motown Collection 1972-1992

Various Artists
2013 | Motown

Motown's '60s hits may be the Boomer classics, but after Berry Gordy relocated the great Detroit pop-soul label to Los Angeles, it stayed as musically adventurous as ever, and rode the next few decades' R&B waves with aplomb. Artists like Stevie Wonder and the Temptations stayed with Motown for decades and got the latitude to branch out and take risks; Marvin Gaye, the Commodores and Diana Ross recast disco in their own... personal forms. And the label had a particular gift for identifying gifted artists at a very young age, from Michael Jackson to DeBarge and Teena Marie. The '90s hits by Shanice and Boyz II Men that close this set are just a newer version of Motown doing what it had always done: figuring out how to frame the sound of the urban underground to give it a much wider audience.
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The Legend

Johnny Cash
2005 | Columbia/Legacy

Spanning nearly 50 years, this overview of a singer who was more or less a one-man genre gets the hits out of the way in a hurry: the first disc is a boom-chicka-boom stampede through pretty much all of his best-remembered songs through the '70s. Disc 2 is more of the Cash cognoscenti's favorites, going from his early rockabilly wonders to later songs that were written for him (or might as well... have been) by songwriters like Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello, who looked to him as an ancestor. The final two discs are the really clever reframings of Cash's immense canon: a set of the traditional songs and country standards that were the spine of his repertoire, and a collection of the playful duets and collaborations that were this solitary man in black's hidden specialty.
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Names Without a Face: Our Favorite Anonymous Musicians

Arye Dworken — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:23:29 +0000

In a year when three of the most talked-about releases were made by musicians who are notoriously camera shy, it stands to reason that the easiest path to overexposure is stubborn anonymity. Electronic legends Daft Punk, avant-pop duo the Knife and newcomer metal band Ghost B.C. all have anticipated releases to promote, yet all of them refuse to appear unmasked in public. They each have their reasons — be it shyness, myth-making or deliberate detachment from celebrity-obsessed culture — and around them debate rages over whether the whole maneuver is a cleverly-conceived art piece or just a cheap gimmick. But the truth is that these three are just the latest in a long line of masked and anonymous hitmakers who found great success by staying hidden.

Daft Punk

Random Access Memories

Daft Punk
2013 | Columbia

Real names: Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, Thomas Bangalter
Backstory:: Even though, in retrospect, the futuristic android aesthetic seems inseparable from the Daft Punk identity, it was actually only upon the release of the duo's second album, Discovery, that they became "the Robots." Before that, Homem-Christo and Bangalter wore a variety of analog masks because, as they told reporters, they were shy.
Success level:: The Parisian electro-funksters have achieved the impossible, maintaining relevance so adroitly throughout... their 20-year career that everyone from Kanye to Disney to Saint Lauren wants to be associated with them.
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Ghost B.C.

Infestissumam

Ghost B.C.
2013 | Seven Four Entertainment / Republic

Real names: The frontman identifies as Papa Emeritus II, and his backing band is simply known as a Group of Nameless Ghouls.
Backstory:: Not much is known about the origin of the Swedish metal band, aside from the fact that Emeritus's supporting quintet represents the five elements: water, fire, wind, earth and ether. One Nameless Ghoul, however, admitted during an interview that the decision to maintain anonymity was simply inspired by the desire... to live day-to-day as regular people, and not as "rock stars."
Success level:: So far, no one knows who the Ghouls are or what they look like, but after some Internet sleuthing, Ghost B.C.'s frontman has been identified as Tobias Forge, a Swedish musician who's played in the bands Subvision and Repugnant. On stage, Forge transforms into Papa Emeritus — which is really all that matters.
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The Knife

Shaking the Habitual

The Knife
2013 | Mute US Corporation

Real names: Sister and brother Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer
Backstory:: According to the duo's official bio, "We feel like that if we had been there with our plain faces that would destroy the illusion of music. So we tried to dress up as the music. Occult and dark but at the same time, funny." While the Knife was known for wearing black Venetian carnival masks with long bird beaks, recently they... asked young children to represent them in photo shoots wearing masks the duo produced based on portraits of themselves from 2003.
Success level:: The Knife netted considerable critical acclaim with its sophomore release Silent Shout, which landed near the top of multiple 2007 year-end lists. Its current provocation/art piece Shaking the Habitual is already outpacing its predecessor in effusive hosannas.
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SBTRKT

Step In Shadows - EP

SBTRKT
2010 | Young Turks / AWAL

Real name: Aaron Jerome
Backstory:: The London DJ who has remixed Radiohead and M.I.A. hides behind tribal masks because, as he believes, wearing a mask during a celebration evokes the spirit of an ancestor or animal. Or it could just be, as he told Clash magazine, he just isn't very social.
Success level:: With only one critically-acclaimed album under his belt, and despite a coveted Drake endorsement, it's still too early to tell... if Jerome is conjuring up the kind of ancestors who can shepherd him to a successful career.
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The Residents

The Residents - Fingerprince (Tourniquet Of Roses)

The Residents
2012 | CRYPTIC CORP / MVD Entertainment Group

Real names: Admirably unknown. The art-rock collective has existed in anonymity for more than 40 years.
Backstory:: With more than 60 albums to their name, the Residents have retained the mystery by performing in giant eyeball helmets and by refusing to participate in interviews (although its management team known as Cryptic Corporation speaks on the Residents' behalf). Why eyeballs? That's just one of the many mysteries surrounding this avant-garde rock collective.
Success level::... Maintaining cult fandom for nearly half a century is no small feat. And, as if to offer proof of its rabid following, the band recently offered an "Ultimate Box Set," which included a first pressing of its complete catalog along with rarities like an eyeball mask all stored in a functioning refrigerator for $100,000. There are only 10 in existence yet — shockingly — it's unknown whether even a single one was sold.
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Deadmau5

MF Doom

OPERATION: DOOMSDAY (Complete)

MF DOOM
2011 | Metalface Records / Now Again Records

Real name: Daniel Dumile
Backstory:: According to graffiti artist Blake "KEO" Lethem, in the early days Dumile wore a Darth Maul mask which Lethem painted aluminum, cut out square eyes and made room for a rapper's mouth to flow with ease. Eventually, the pair bought a replica gladiator helmet and removed the faceplate. The influential rapper sought anonymity so he could walk freely, even in a venue he would later that night perform... in, without being recognized. Although, as recent as two years back, the mask inspired controversy, as many suspected that the Doom on stage for some live performances was not Dumile himself, but an imposter lip-syncing to a recording.
Success level:: Nike devoted a pair of Dunks to him, and Kid Robot made an MF Doom vinyl collectible. Both fetch some pretty impressive numbers on the resale market, indicating the fanbase is there, and it is rabid.
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Xasthur

Nightmares At Dawn

Xasthur
2012 | Metalhit.com / The Orchard

Real name: The now-defunct black metal act revolved around core member Scott Conner, who went by the pseudonym Malefic.
Backstory:: Malefic wore black-and-white corpse paint with a hooded Grim Reaper cowl, which he said is intended as "an expression of hatred, death or a transformation into another spirit." The black-metal musician also didn't perform live, nor did he conduct interviews in person, so it's no surprise that demand was so high for rabid... fans to see his true appearance — so much so that a YouTube video which repurposes still photos from a magazine shoot with self-titled magazine currently has 22,000 views.
Success level:: An avant-garde black metal band that has never toured will have a limited audience, but that audience was passionate and devoted.
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The Locust

You'll Be Safe Forever

The Locust
2013 | Editions Mego / Kudos Records Limited

Real names: Justin Pearson, Gabe Serbian, Bobby Bray, Joey Karam
Backstory:: It's only appropriate that a band attributed with creating the genre known as "powerviolence" wear insect costumes complete with netted eyes, featureless masks and uniforms that aren't distinct from one another.
Success level:: In a recent interview, Pearson said, "I tend to not give a shit about where marketable culture is heading. Maybe I should, but I'll leave that to the fools.... Anyone can polish a turd and sell it to the masses if you have the conglomerates backing you." However, it should also be noted that Dave Lombardo of Slayer is a fan — which in most quarters qualifies as a success.
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Sally Shapiro

Somewhere Else

Sally Shapiro
2013 | Paper Bag Records / The Orchard

Real names: Johan Agebjörn is the producer behind the Italian disco revivalist duo called Sally Shapiro, yet the woman who also performs vocals as "Sally Shapiro" has yet to reveal her real name.
Backstory:: It's a strange thing to cooperate with the press by doing photo shoots and interviews, and all the while withholding any or all personal information. But, the blonde Swedish vocalist suffers from shyness so crippling it prevents her from... even considering touring. Oh, and in case you think this is just a gimmick: Agebjörn himself is banned from the studio whenever "Shapiro" records her vocals. When asked about this in an interview with Vice magazine, she said, "It's a character. I enhance certain aspects of my personality and leave a lot behind. As Sally Shapiro, I dance all night long in small disco clubs and walk in the moonshine thinking about my love affairs. As myself I'm also free to do other stuff." Such as…?
Success level:: It's an incredible thing — perhaps this is one instance in which I admire the Internet for its restraint — but no matter how many times Shapiro insists on anonymity, no one from a little village in Sweden says, "Oh yeah. That girl. I went to high school with her. Her name is…"
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10 Iconic Album Covers and the Imitators They Inspired

Michael Tedder — Fri, 17 May 2013 19:06:17 +0000

Inscrutable and defiant, the cover image of David Bowie’s 12th album “Heroes” is one of the most iconic images in all of rock ‘n’ roll. So you can hardly blame Bowie for thinking it was too good to only be used once. The cover of his latest album, The Next Day, is a direct homage to one of the most cherished albums in his lengthy discography. But while Bowie is an innovator in many fields, in this instance he’s actually part of a long tradition of artists using their album art to nod to the past.

Before the Clash, Ween and the X-Ecutioners became restless, boundary-pushing artists, they were devoted music fans. That spirit never left them, and they used the covers of some of their most beloved albums to pay tribute to those that inspired them to keep pushing forward. In an effort to pay tribute to other people’s tributes, we’ve gathered together 10 of our favorite album cover homages. As these picks prove, everyone gets inspired by someone else, but what matters most is where you take it next.

David Bowie and David Bowie

From Joni Mitchell to David Lynch to TV on the Radio, David Bowie has always been a vocal fan of the artists that excite him, and he’s nearly always shown great taste. So it makes sense that David Bowie would be a big David Bowie fan — because what right-thinking person isn’t? On The Next Day, Bowie and his trusted producer Tony Visconti revisit some of the sounds and lyrical themes from his most classic albums (single “Where Are We Now” even checks back in on Berlin), but always keeps an eye toward the future. As such, the cover of The Next Day makes sense: It acknowledges the past, but makes it clear that Bowie has no interest in staying there.

"Heroes"

David Bowie
1999 | VIRGIN
The Next Day

David Bowie
2013 | Iso/Columbia

Elvis Presley and The Clash

The Clash famously sang “No Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones” on their single “1977,” but don’t believe a word of it. One listen to their magnum opus London Calling reveals that Joe Strummer and co. had an encyclopedic knowledge of rock ‘n’ roll, rocksteady reggae and R&B. Just to prove these guys knew their roots, the cover of London is a spot-on reference to Elvis Presley’s self-titled debut album. The font and color scheme is the same, with a picture of bassist Paul Simonon wrecking his guitar subbed in for Presley playing his. It’s often read as an announcement that The Clash had officially arrived to tear down the past, but perhaps it was just a way for rock’s then newest vanguards to show sly respect to the king they knew they were replacing.

Simon & Garfunkel and Kruder & Dorfmeister

Austrian downtempo duo Kruder & Dorfmeister released this EP in 1993, well before Francis McDormand’s character in Almost Famous called Simon & Garfunkel “the poetry of drugs and promiscuous sex.” But they had likely already heard the rumors about how the New York folkies stayed so mellow and introspective. Their debut EP G-Stoned paid tribute to a previous generation’s chill-out soundtrack, while demonstrating the perennial ability of the black turtleneck to make anyone look sophisticated and intellectual.

G-Stoned

Kruder & Dorfmeister
1994 | EP/SINGLE

Lifetime and The Ergs

New Jersey jokers The Ergs named their first album Dorkrockcorkrod and never let you forget that they were three obsessed music geeks, as quick to praise (lest you get it twisted, The Ben Kweller EP was truly a labor of love) as they were to condemn (all time greatest Ergs song title: “Johnny Rzeznik Needs His Ass Kicked”). Their 2005 EP Jersey’s Best Prancers paid tribute to Garden State Punk O.G.’s Lifetime’s seminal Jersey’s Best Dancers, an album best known for the scene anthem “Theme Song for a New Brunswick Basement Show.” Sure, The Ergs actually repped nearby South Amboy, but the sentiment crossed county lines.

Jersey's Best Dancers

Lifetime
Jade Tree
Jersey's Best Prancers

The Ergs
Don Giovanni Records

Andrew Hill and Atmosphere

Atmosphere is best known for MC Slug’s tales of bad love and hard luck, but producer/DJ Anthony “Ant” Davis has always demonstrated a keen ear for 1960′s soul, pop and jazz samples. Though Atmosphere’s debut album has bits of Bee Gees and Stevie Wonder in the mix, the album cover pays tribute to Andrew Hill’s 1964 bop classic Judgment. Perhaps Ant already had it in his collection (the man knows a good horn riff when he hears it), or perhaps Slug could relate to the title.

Judgment (Rudy Van Gelder Edition)

Andrew Hill
2005 | BLUE NOTE
Overcast!

Atmosphere
2007 | Rhymesayers

Leonard Cohen and Ween

During their long, glorious existence, Ween were simultaneously the most irreverent and respectful group of music aficionados around. Sure, they might write a Jimmy Buffet pisstake called “Bananas and Blow,” but they still cared enough to totally nail the steel drum. The duo’s second album The Pod is perhaps the “brownest” album in their catalog, so dank and weird that it still gives a contact high two decades later. For reasons known only to The Boognish, these weirdos decided that this was the best possible moment to pay tribute to The Best Of Leonard Cohen, with the cover picture of Canada’s Greatest Poet swapped out for a shot of bassist Mean Ween enjoying some of Home Depot’s Finest. Hey, perhaps the authors of “She Fucks Me” wanted to make sure we knew that they knew that Leonard Cohen is some of the best getting-laid music around.

The Best Of Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen
1988 | Columbia
The Pod

Ween
2010 | New Rounder

Public Enemy and The X-Ecutioners

Sure, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back gets all the attention, but Public Enemy’s debut Yo! Bum Rush the Show introduced the world to the prowess of DJ Terminator X and producer Hank Shocklee. This album finished the argument that Run-D.M.C. started, re: the ability of two turntables relative to the ability to rock a crowd. A nation of DJs owe this album an eternal debt, and New York scratch collective The X-Ecutioners paid tribute with the cover of their 2002 breakthrough Built From Scratch, which shoved turntabilism in to the mainstream for a few minutes via the Linkin Park collaboration “It’s Goin’ Down.”

Yo! Bum Rush The Show

Public Enemy
1995 | Def Jam/RAL
Built From Scratch

The X-ecutioners
2002 | LOUD Records

Michael Jackson and Tech N9ne

Michael Jackson is arguably the most popular musician who ever lived, and Thriller is his world-conquering masterpiece. Tech N9ne, for his part, is really, really popular in Kansas City. Killer is another fine entry in a discography devoted to helping Midwestern rap fans blow off some steam and ruin their speakers. As the straitjacket cover and song titles like “Get The F**k Outta Here,” make clear, Tech isn’t really interested in making a four-quadrant audience pleaser in the mold of Thriller, though even MJ could get down with the message of “Hope For A Higher Power.” Though he probably would have preferred it came with less gunshot samples.

Thriller

Michael Jackson
2007 | Epic
Killer

Tech N9ne
Strange Music

2 Live Crew and Spank Rock & Benny Blanco

Miami booty-bass mob 2 Live Crew were called all kinds of things during the run as lords of the low rider in the late ’80s — usually various synonyms for “juvenile” and “gross.” One thing they were hardly ever called was “inspiring,” but Luke Skywalker’s ass anthems must have touched the – let’s say “hearts” — of young Virginia smart alecks Spank Rock & Benny Blanco. The music often gets as cheeky as the cover, with tracks like “B-O-O-T-A-Y” serving double duty as paeans to both derrieres and sticky nostalgia for misspent youth.

Kiss and The Melvins

Before King Buzzo and company became the most pitiless riff monsters to ever emerge from the Northeast, The Melvins were just a bunch of teenage arena rock fans. And during the height of 1990′s cred-auditing, the group went out of their way to display their good standing in the Kiss Army by patterning a series of three Eps after Kiss’ infamous four solo album deluge. Gene Simmons recruited guests like Cher, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter and even a pre-fame Katy Segal for his opus, while Buzzo got his friend Dave Grohl, then at the height of Nirvanamania, to take care of the drum skins. Because the early ’90s were unfathomably strange, a year later The Melvins, whom often strived to sound like a black hole swallowing a whale, signed to a major label, toured arenas with Nine Inch Nails and even got Simmons to jam with them onstage.

Gene Simmons

Gene Simmons
1997 | Island Def Jam
King Buzzo

Melvins
EP/SINGLE

eMusic’s Alternate-Universe Eurovision

Laura Studarus — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:04:55 +0000

The Eurovision Song Contest was established as way to bring European countries together after World War II. The first competition was held in the town of Lugano, Switzerland, on May 24, 1956. Since then, it’s become a sprawling behemoth that makes American Idol, The Voice and X-Factor look downright quaint. The first year, seven countries entered. Now in its 58th year, 39 countries are competing for the top prize.

To participate, musicians must submit an original, unpublished song. Since residents of their home country can’t vote for them, the goal is to woo an international audience. As a result, language, content and staging is all up for interpretation. Read: This is a contest of big, bigger biggest.

eMusic’s Laura Studarus complied a fantasy Eurovision Song Contest lineup. How would artists and songs stack up against each other if the laws of time, space, and competition were suspended in favor of good taste and outstanding musicality?

Denmark: Mew

Mew And The Glass Handed Kites

Mew
2012 | Columbia

Song submitted: "Zookeeper's Boy"
Odds of winning: 4:1

Mew may be the most likely to catch viewers off-guard with their sneaky combination of ethereal hooks and grinding guitars. "Zookeeper's Boy," from the band's 2005 album And the Glass handed Kites, mixes prog with just the right amount of whimsy, making it perfect for mass consumption. (Sample lyric: "If there's a glitch, you're an ostrich.") Add to that the band's propensity for Edward Gorey-style visuals... and frontman Jonas Bjerre's doe-eyed charisma, and right out of the gate you've got a band to beat.
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England: Chad Valley

Young Hunger

Chad Valley
2012 | Cascine / Redeye

Song submitted: "Fall 4 U (feat. Glasser)"
Odds of winning: 20:1

For his debut full-length Young Hunger, producer Hugo Manuel (aka Chad Valley) brought quite a collection of friends with him, including Twin Shadow, El Perro Del Mar, Active Child and Glasser. And what does a gathering of pals plus music equal? A party. Which is completely in line with Eurovision's reconciliatory nature. While any song on the album could be a competition-worthy single,... Manuel will bring along Glasser to perform restrained electro love duet, "Fall 4 U." Will top awards to go the ghost of 1980s film soundtracks past? With a coupling this chemistry-heavy, it's not impossible.
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Estonia: Maria Minerva

Will Happiness Find Me?

Maria Minerva
2012 | Not Not Fun / Revolver

Song submitted: "Sweet Synergy"
Odds of winning: 600:1

Estonian sound-collage artist Maria Minerva isn't your standard Eurovision song competitor. But if Belgium can enter Telex — a band whose idea of a chorus is chanting "Eurovision Eurovision Eurovision" — surely there's a room to think outside of the box. Minerva's debut album Will Happiness Find Me? is a series of atonal experiments, woozy minimal disco, and cascades of samples. Underneath it all beats a... spooky, fractured-pop heart. Let's be honest: Minerva's chances of winning are slim. But she won't go down without a fight.
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France: Daft Punk

Get Lucky

Daft Punk
2013 | EP/SINGLE

Song submitted: "Get Lucky"
Odds of winning: even

There's a subgenre in music known as "schlager." In German, it means "a hit." But loosely translated in Eurovision Song Contest speak it means, "A pop song with a hint of cheese you gladly overlook because it's so damn catchy." No song in this year's fantasy field comes close to Daft Punk's recently-released single "Get Lucky." The helmeted Frenchmen have combined 1970s disco funk, handclaps, Pharrell... glitter-glam vocals, and just a whiff of vocoder to create the kind of tune you can imagine kids little kids getting down to and adults, er, "getting down" to. You might want to start engraving the winner's trophy now.
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Italy: Porcelain Raft

Strange Weekend

Porcelain Raft
2012 | Secretly Canadian / SC Dist.

Song submitted: "Unless You Speak From Your Heart"
Odds of winning: 100:1

Eurovision is Porcelain Raft's (Mauro Remiddi) chance to show the world that he's about more than hazy pop choruses constructed from drum loops, gently strummed guitars, whispered vocals, and tape hiss. Strange Weekend single "Unless You Speak From Your Heart" combines the dream pop hallmarks with a hip-hop beat, and crisp pace that splits the difference between Beach House atmospherics and Jam-style... posturing. Bedroom recording wimp? Hardly. Here's hoping the one-man-band brings a few friends to help him fill the big stage.
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Norway: Sondre Lerche

Two Way Monologue

Sondre Lerche
2004 | CAROLINE ASTRALWERKS - CAT

Song submitted: "Two Way Monologue"
Odds of winning: 7:1

A Norwegian scene stalwart, Sondre Lerche's eight albums have covered a lot of ground: from pop to garage rock to film scores to bossa nova. Which pretty much means Lerche can be anything we want him to be — including a Eurovision champion. Single "Two Way Monologue" (taken from the 2004 album of the same name) is his greatest chance to take home the title.... Striking a happy medium between singing and crooning, Lerche isn't just out to perform for the audience, but seduce them. And you know what? It just might work.
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Poland: KAMP!

Melt

Kamp
2013 | Discotexas / GoodToGo

Song submitted: "Melt"
Odds of winning: 70:1

Eastern Europe's answer to Friendly Fires, Polish dance trio KAMP! gravitate towards slick production, bouncy Balearic beats, and lush beds of electronics. It might be a hard sell, since generally the competition favors more straight up pop-driven fare. (Just don't tell the 2006 winner, Finnish death metal band Lordi, that.) But if anyone can sweep viewers up in their undeniable wave of ready-for-primetime dance club energy, it's... a band so vibrant they had to include an exclamation point in their name.
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Scotland: CHVRCHES

The Mother We Share

CHVRCHES
2012 | EP/SINGLE

Song submitted: "The Mother We Share"
Odds of winning: 16:1

Eurovision favors the over-the-top statement. Backup dancers, feathers, light shows — these are people who are likely to laugh at the suggestion that you merely "put a bird on it." No one's music lends itself to embellishment quite like electro-pop outfit, CHVRCHES. Like The Knife rendered in primary colors, the Scottish trio favor icy electronics and ambitious musical gestures. CHVRCHES lean towards the emotional... though, their tales of love and hate framed by frontwoman Lauren Mayberry's fairytale-worthy vocals. Sure they've been known to stand still when performing, but that just makes it easier to frame them with rings of fire and chorus girls.
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Spain: Devendra Banhart

Mala

Devendra Banhart
2013 | Nonesuch

Song submitted: "Mi Negrita"
Odds of winning: 150:1

Fun fact: There's no rule that an artist has to actually hail from the country they represent in Eurovision Song Contest. Which is why, in 1988, Céline Dion won on behalf of Switzerland — despite being Canadian. With multi-genre provocateur El Guincho in perpetual hiding, the nation will tap Spanish-influenced Devendra Banhart to fill in. The laid-back folkie may not have the razzle dazzle factor of... other acts, but Tropicália-accented balled "Mi Negrita" won't go completely unappreciated.
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Sweden: Jens Lekman

Night Falls Over Kortedala

Jens Lekman
Secretly Canadian / SC Dist.

Song submitted: "The World Moves On"
Odds of winning: 2:1

In 1974, ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest with their rendition of "Waterloo," which went on to appear on the band's second album of the same name. Who better to carry on the tradition than Jens Lekman? The closing track of his 2007 album Night Falls Over Kortedala "Friday Night at the Drive in Bingo" contains the same simple syrup-laced pop that saw Benny... Andersson and the gang to victory — right down to a horn-filled chorus and nostalgic location name-checking. Bonus: Lekman squeezes in an offhanded mention of rabbit sex. Let's see the dancing queens try to do that.
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Joe Lovano’s Top Six Saxophonists

Ken Micallef — Fri, 03 May 2013 17:34:35 +0000

Joe Lovano’s output is voluminous and encompasses an array of jazz styles. He blew an immaculate, straight-ahead tenor saxophone on 52nd Street Themes, honored Charlie Parker on Bird Songs and revisited the ’50s-era school of cool on Streams of Expression. And then there’s his blustery, innovative work as a member of the Paul Motian Trio with the late, master drummer and guitarist Bill Frisell. Throughout, Lovano’s tenor is as flexible as the material he pursues, a burly, angular, shimmering, even romantic instrument that’s grounded in jazz but is ultimately not chained to it.

Perhaps more than with his other groups, Us Five gives Lovano a lab in which to try out new ideas, new configurations, and new sounds. The group’s latest release, Cross Currents (Blue Note), takes the group forward while Lovano looks back. Over the course of its running time, Lovano plays an assortment of horns and percussion, from Hungarian tarogato and Belgian aulochrome to Nigerian log drum and gongs; the group group includes Grammy Award winning bassist Esperanza Spalding and drummers Otis Brown III and Francisco Mela. This amalgam of unusual instruments, and the group’s dual drummer configuration, recalls the boundary-stretching ’60s recordings of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman.

“Some of the instruments I play on the album I have collected through the years,” Lovano says. “They’re ancient sounds, they go back in time in the history of the world of music, from Asia, North Africa, Nigeria. These sounds feel like the earth, like having it come from your soul. It’s not just a technical thing. When you vibrate on the tonalities of these instruments and don’t try to play any specific kind of music, you feel the soul of the music in a different kind of way.”

A similar philosophy extends to the makeup of Lovano’s group. “To have a quintet with double drummers, a lot of points of reference can happen,” he says. “Anything can happen if everyone is paying attention and sharing a space together. That’s the idea. The double drummer configuration was inspired by Art Blakey, Max Roach, Billy Higgins and Ed Blackwell with Ornette, and Rashid Ali and Elvin Jones with Coltrane.”

As the masters have influenced Lovano, he has in turn influenced the new guard of younger jazz musicians.

“I realize what a deep relationship I have with all of these cats.” Lovano says. “It’s a beautiful scene today. As a musician, for a long time you’re in people’s audiences. Then all of a sudden, they’re in your audience. I was in Joe Henderson’s audience a lot,” he continues. “And the audiences of Dexter Gordon, George Coleman and Clifford Jordan. Once when I was playing the Berkhausen festival in Germany, Dexter was in the audience. That night I somehow held my notes just a little longer. I got up the next morning and Dexter was just coming in and we hung in the hotel lobby. I got the chills. That happens for all of us and it’s happening for these cats now. It’s a continuum. That’s how these things are handed down: in real time.”

eMusic’s Ken Micallef asked Lovano to listen and comment on new recordings from his favorite current saxophonists.

Novela - arr. by Kris Davis

Tony Malaby
2011 | Clean Feed / The Orchard

Tony has a very hip, contemporary approach. He's a New York cat, playing in a lot of ensembles exploring different ways of playing. He reminds me of when I first came into town in the '70s and early '80s and the different loft situations I was involved with, which really carried me into today. He is experiencing a lot of stuff in those directions. And also he's had a chance to play... with Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, which I joined in 1986. And he's been experiencing playing Carla Bley's great music, and he is putting together ideas and assembling his personal history. All of these cats are doing that. Novela is really reminiscent of Liberation Orchestra: the energy, the way he feels the music from within the ensemble and steps forward within it. Tony plays with a beautiful organic approach. To improvise and create music within the music is where I want to live.
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Gamak

Rudresh Mahanthappa
2013 | ACT Music + Vision / The Orchard

Rudresh really is developing a way of playing [that's drawn] from his roots and his personal explorations and the people he has been with. His sound on the instrument has a vocal quality that is really beautiful. I've known him since we met at the Gunther Schuller workshop in the early '90s. Then, he was coming from a certain alto approach influenced by Steve Coleman and cats from Chicago like Bunky Green.... On this recording, a lot of stuff is coming together for him: his lines, his story. He's got multi-dimensional roots. Some cats have deep roots, some have shallow roots, some have no roots. You can hear it in every phrase they play. The way you can make records today, there are no Bruce Lundvalls or Michael Cuscunas, it's easy to make your own CD now. It's good in one way. But in another way it stamps you if you're not ready. Maybe you only have 15 minutes in you and you have to record 70. That makes the listener want to hit the fast forward button instead of the repeat button. Not that these recordings were like that. But Rudresh is playing from very deep roots.
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Casting For Gravity

Donny McCaslin
2012 | eOne Music / Entertainment One Distribution

I heard Donny with Gary Burton when he first played in New York years ago in the '90s. He immediately impresses you, because he is very serious on his horn. He has more of a straight-eights feeling, an up-and-down approach in his rhythm that puts you in a certain direction. But he can play, man. The band on this record is strong and it's well-rehearsed and the execution is amazing. I think... they achieved their goal of trying to play perfect. It has that polished feeling to it. Donny is an incredible saxophonist, though this recording left me a little cold. It's about playing the layers, and I'm not sure if they played as a band or with a performance attitude in the studio as opposed to laying tracks. But everybody played their part incredible, like they were following a score, like it was already laid down on a computer. That is a way of recording, and that has its challenge. But it's not about interpretation as much as trying to play with perfection.
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The Sirens

Chris Potter
2013 | ECM

Chris has a lot of ideas. He plays beautiful bass clarinet and a number of horns. I've heard him through the years tackle a lot of different avenues and ways of playing with cats. He has a real special maturity all his own. He plays with a lot of trust and he really explores his dynamics within the music. He has beautiful rhythm and flowing ideas. The tunes on this recording have... a soulful expressive feeling to them. I first heard Chris playing with Red Rodney and he was playing alto. He didn't really start on tenor until he began playing with Paul Motian. He's real versatile and he has a strong presence in his tone and articulation and he can fit in a lot of settings because he's very free rhythmically on his horn. That's why you hear him with everyone from Steely Dan to Pat Metheny. He is definitely a disciple of Michael Brecker in a certain way, and he's gone in a direction that has led to those gigs. When Joshua Redman and Chris Potter and Eric Alexander played the 1991 Thelonious Monk competition, Alexander came in second. Eric was one of my students. Eric has great jazz roots in his playing, his study of Sonny Stitt and George Coleman, they taught him how to play. When I taught Eric at William Patterson College, he played a Sonny Stiff solo right off the bat. A lot is coming together for him now. He can play and he knows a lot of music. He's involved in the rich history of the music more than the others actually. Eric has a deep repertoire of his own. That's the depth of your soul and roots in the music, and Eric has a deep repertoire.
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Triumph of the Heavy, Vol. 1

Marcus Strickland
2011 | Strick Muzik / TuneCore

I've known Marcus for a while, he's got a real nice feeling. He plays relaxed and clear. He really needs to experience playing in a lot of situations. I've heard him with Roy Haynes's groups. But to put out a double CD like this, that's challenging and ambitious. I give him a lot of credit. He's playing tenor and alto and soprano and he's searching and discovering things all the time. He's... developing a sound of his own on those different horns. Beautiful. The people he's playing with on the record, they're like a family and you can really hear that comfort and flow; it's beautiful.
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Year Of The Snake

Fly Trio
2012 | ECM

Fly is a beautiful trio, they play with a wonderful clarity. And Mark plays with a brilliant execution on his horn. But he plays with more of a classical feeling in nature on the horn. He has a beautiful sound and there are soulful moments that appear, but his approach on the instrument is really a classical approach in a way. I mean his rhythm and execution, the way he plays up... and down the horn. He plays with an amazing range on his instrument. That trio has a classical approach in the way the music is written and the way they come off it in the rhythm and in the attitude they're playing. They're improvising but their dialogue is more classical in nature, the way it feels. They have soulful moments, but what is swing? That's expression, the waves, the life forms, the wind. Fly sounds lovely and beautiful and their music has a real presence, it captures you.
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Blood on the Dancefloor: 12 Essential Avant-Dance Albums

Andrew Parks — Wed, 01 May 2013 15:09:20 +0000

“I don’t think of music as cathartic or a release,” Dominick Fernow once told me in a cover story about his former band Cold Cave. “A release implies that something is leaving you. It’s not that so much as a transformation.”

Whether he’s whipping up whirlpools of noise as Prurient or delving into the darkest corners of dance music as Vatican Shadow, Fernow has always followed that path — music as a purification process, only instead of the poison being drawn out of his productions, it’s harnessed in the form of distorted tape decks, chain-linked synths and rust-encrusted samples.

He’s not alone either; while house producers have been revisiting their rave cave roots as of late, underground techno has turned 50 shades of grey. Literally and figuratively, as melodies get maimed, tempos get turned on, and rhythms embrace the very notion of electronic body music.

In the following guide, eMusic breaks down 12 essential avant-dance albums that will flood your endorphin levels (or plunge you into a pit of despair) faster than a midnight screening of Spring Breakers. Think of it as EDM’s evil twin, music that makes you move without resorting to crowd-pleasing power chords or answering the question that seems to be on everyone’s minds these days: “Where’s the drop?”

And as a bonus, we’ve also included a secondary set of recommendations and a “Panic Room” collection of deviant downtempo tracks…

Suckfish

Audion
2005 | Spectral Sound / The Orchard

Matthew Dear was way ahead of the current deviant-techno curve with the debut album from this dearly missed alias. In case you couldn't tell from oh-so-subtle song titles like "Titty Fuck," "Just Fucking" and "Your Place or Mine," Suckfish funnels Dear's darkest fantasies through hardcore techno tropes, ravenous rhythms and hypnotist hooks that are the polar opposite of "you're getting sleepy, very sleepy." If anything, you'll be wired as hell after hearing... this record.
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Liber Dogma

The Black Dog
2011 | Soma / PIAS Digital

A cursory look at the Black Dog's mixes page (especially the aptly-titled "Dark Wave" series) is all it takes to understand how one of Warp's earliest (accidental) IDM adopters has only gotten more ashen with age. Sometimes that approach reveals itself in ambient stunners like the Eno nod Music For Real Airports — arguably an improvement on the original — and sometimes it lands directly on the dancefloor, as is... the case on this masterclass in metallic, muscular techno.
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Transverse

Carter Tutti Void
2012 | Mute Artists

A student of Throbbing Gristle's "industrial music for industrial people" teaching — Factory Floor's Nik Void -- meets two of its founders — Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, also of the incredibly influential Chris & Cosey — in a one-night-only collision of bowed guitar chords, metronomic melodies, HAM radio harmonies, and rhythms that won't let go. No wonder why the capacity crowd — part of Mute's celebratory Short... Circuit festival in 2011 — couldn't help but responding with resounding cheers at the end.
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LP

Container
2012 | Spectrum Spools / Kudos Records Limited

Ren Schofield is not as well-known as his fellow noise defectors — people like Prurient, Nate Young and Pete Swanson — but in a perfect world, he would be. Maybe even more so. Both of his Spectrum Spools albums are simply called LP, which makes them sound more vanilla than they really are. If there's any dance full-length worth a floor-punch or slamdance, it's this one, from the bendable basslines of... "Paralyzed" to the loony vocal lines of "Perforate," which might as well be considered the terrifying, long-lost twin of Cajmere's house classic "Coffee Pot (It's Time for the Percolator)."
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Faint Hearted

the miles
2013 | Modern Love / Revolver

As in "Not for the...," Miles Whittaker's first solo album under his own name is a three-car pileup of the highest order. Not quite as noisy as his Suum Cuique alias or witchy as his work with Demdike Stare, but demented dance music nonetheless. Even the most serene moments (the galaxy-hopping ambient loops of "Loran Dreams," the deep listening drones of "Sense Data") sound like they're seconds away from veering... off the tracks, and everything else is increasingly erratic and engrossing, as if Whittaker is trying to break on through to the other side — or at the very least, your living room wall — with his skittish samples.
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Man With Potential

Pete Swanson
2011 | Type Vinyl / Morr Music GBR

A couple of strange things happened after Yellow Swans broke up. On one side of the aisle, Gabriel Saloman went the cobweb-y neo-classical route with his Adherealbum. Pete Swanson swung to the other extreme, expressing his basement punk roots through mangled techno opuses like Man With Potential. Not exactly the kind of thing you want to blast at 1 a.m. when you're landlord lives right across the hall, but when... you need a reality check that's fallen from the same rotten apple tree as Surgeon and the Sandwell District fam, this is a decent start.
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Complete Works 1997 - 1998

Regis
2012 | Downwards

Minimal techno doesn't get any more murderous than Karl O'Connor's flawless run as Regis. Maybe that's why he formed BMB (a.k.a. British Murder Boys, a recently reactivated project with Surgeon) a little over a decade after delivering the steely slabs of sound that hammer away at the core of this chaotic compilation. Definitely one of the godfathers of gloom — cool, calculated and calm like a bomb.
Feed Forward

Sandwell District
2011 | Sandwell District

When Sandwell District — an audio/visual collective that counted Function, Silent Servant and Regis among its ranks — "repressed" this limited double LP in digital form a few years ago, its growing cult following interpreted it as a mission statement. Turned out it was more of a death knell. For the label at least; the group continues to tour and work together, from Regis's executive production credits on Silent... Servant's first solo album to the sprawling mix Function and Regis recently cut for Fabric under the now-familiar Sandwell District name. Witness the origins of it all right here, as truly underground techno takes on the form of tractor beams and centrifugal forces.
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Crossed Paths

Shifted
2012 | Mote Evolver / N.E.W.S. NV

Let's say you're really excited about finally getting into a secretive dance spot like Berlin's epicenter of underground techno, Berghain. The night's going great, but then this Shifted guy goes on, starting with nearly seven minutes of mood-manipulating drone tones, then dropping into a black hole of clouded chords and beats that murmur and moan like a heart in desperate need of a transplant. Maybe you should head home before things get... too bleak? Why does the door appear to be locked? Looks like you'll have to wait until the storm passes.
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Force+Form

Surgeon
2010 | Tresor / N.E.W.S. NV

Four songs, 40 minutes — zero bullshit. Bow down to the one of the undisputed bibles of club music that literally makes you want to club things. (Please don't; we're just making a point here.)
Ornamented Walls

Vatican Shadow
2012 | Modern Love / Revolver

So this is why Dominick Fernow suddenly left Cold Cave last year — so he could perfect the tranced-out Muslimgauze tributes with the project that was quickly eclipsing his endless stream of Prurient releases. In many ways, Ornamented Walls is a transitional record, using Side A to hint at the next direction of Fernow's infamous live show (with frenzied rehearsal footage of "Operation Neptune Spear") and showing us what's up his... sleeve studio-wise throughout the chemtrail cuts on Side B. That the record came out on Modern Love — the same label as Miles, Demdike Stare and Andy Stott — sealed the deal even further for Fernow's emerging role in the sadomasochistic techno scene.
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Luxury Problems

Andy Stott
2012 | Modern Love / Revolver

Considering he's been doing the whole shadow boxer thing since 2006's Merciless LP, the recent attention foisted upon Andy Stott is long overdue. That, and understandable considering how far he's raised the bar with Luxury Problems, a gorgeous exploration of electronic music's Darth Vader side, complete with melancholic melodies (from Stott's old piano teacher!), an endless supply of murky fog machines, and beats that'll make you break into a cold sweat.... Think of this as the blissful breather you're gonna need after having your head bashed in by the rest of these records.
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