Reviewed by Eric Saeger It could be said that this surf-Americana-rock solo project from Everyday Visuals frontman Christopher Pappas mimics the effect of putting CDs from Bright Eyes, Glasvegas and Snow Patrol in the stereo and hitting Randomize. Owing to the predominance of it, I get the feeling Pappas most prefers doing bummer-busker stuff, strumming […]
Bringing It All Back Home: Dylan at 70
As Dylan turns 70, Robert O’Connor travels back up Highway 61 to untangle the myths and legends “Where did you come from, Cotton-eye Joe?” That’s the first question Studs Terkel asked Bob Dylan on his legendary radio show in 1963. Bob didn’t really answer then, and he hasn’t really answered since. He’s given hints, and […]
Yellowjackets: Timeline (Mack Avenue Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Considering the space Yellowjackets’ fill in the jazz continuum, one would expect them to be more of a household name than they actually are – meaning ‘outside the realm of people with rudimentary knowledge of the genre’. Loping, slick as hell, and often gorgeous, what these guys do isn’t quite fusion […]
The Sway Machinery: The House of Friendly Ghosts Vol. 1 (JDub Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Timbuktu-born singer – actually a superstar in his country – Khaira Arby joins the Brooklyn-based Jewish world-beaters in this outing, the inspiration for which sprang from the band’s journey to play a festival in Mali. The result is an infectious, intricate mixture held together coherently by Arby, who, aside from his […]
Positively 4th Street
Robert O’Connor reports from the Minneapolis Dinkytown and West Bank scene where Robert Zimmerman became Bob Dylan The University of Minnesota’s main campus is divided into two campuses – one in St. Paul, the other in Minneapolis. The one in Minneapolis is divided in two again, straddling the east and west sides of the Mississippi […]
The Big Pink: Tapes (!K7 Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Knob-rotation sluggishness, dream-pop and dubstep unite in this roughly-concepted mix from Milo Cordell, the better half of UK nu-raving duo Big Pink. Focus here is on the new crop of Americans doing the haunted house thing, best example being Salem, whose ‘Dirt’ appears here. By “roughly concepted”, I mean to say […]
Off The Ropes: The Boxer Rebellion
London-based indie rock band The Boxer Rebellion are proof that even in the fragile, fickle beast of the music industry, sometimes, with enough belief, a strong unity of purpose and most importantly a huge blessing of talent, the good does finally triumph. Russell Mardell interviews the band’s Todd Howe Independent since their only record label […]
Pop Goes Literature: The Decemberists
An authentic literary sensibility in pop music is rare but according to Ben Granger The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy has more than enough to share Pop music and literature are two separate miracles, the silent shout and the screamed secret, two wonders working to their own, different and divided rules. Each has seductive thrills of its […]
Ben Kono: Crossing (Nineteen Eight Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Nu-jazz, purportedly Asian influenced owing to multi-instrumentalist Kono’s (Japanese, I believe) heritage, however my immediate overall impression was of a fairly straightforward Western blend. ‘Castles and Daffodils’ opens the record to rambling effect; originally a paean to a downcast Stanley Kunitz poem, the originally effect was scrapped and re-engineered as an […]
Runner Runner: Runner Runner (Capitol Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger More depleted pop soil for the grind from the latest entry in the endless procession of SoCal mall-punk bands, a resource more abundant in nature than carbon emissions from cow farts. I don’t spend a lot of time smoking joints in the back seat of mom’s Toyota these days, but I’m […]
Progressive Rock: The Sound That Time Forgot
In the newly-revised edition of his book The Music’s All That Matters, music journalist Paul Stump finds acceptance of the last musical taboo – progressive rock. Jason Weaver bends an ear In his Spike review of June 2000, Stephen Harper reckoned Unknown Pleasures the definitive work on Roxy Music for many years to come. Its […]
International Festival Musique Actuelle: Victoriaville
Whether you call it improv, avant-rock or noise, Québec has a music festival dedicated to it Where: Victoriaville, Québec, Canada When: 19th to 22 May 2011 What: Michel Levasseur, artistic director and founder of FIMAV: “We did not coin the term, but in those days Musique Actuelle was more clearly defined by what it was […]
Free Jazz: Fat Kid Wednesdays: Three Guys Having Fun
Drawing on an improvisational heritage that includes Ornette Coleman, Fat Kid Wednesdays have been playing together for almost 20 years. Robert O’Connor listens in Fat Kid Wednesdays: ‘Skylark’: For 12 years, until its management dramatically changed hands earlier this year, Fat Kid Wednesdays held a jazz night every Monday at the Clown Lounge, underneath the […]
Sound Advice: Phill Brown’s Musical Odyssey
Sound engineer Phill Brown has an astonishing musical CV. He tells Jason Weaver how to keep it rolling “I was there!” exclaims James Murphy in LCD Soundsystem’s ‘Losing My Edge’, before listing his crucial interventions in the history of rock music. But Phill Brown’s ‘right place and right time’ memoir of his career in the […]
From Mali to Paris: Donso
Malian pop meets Daft Punk electronica with Krazy Baldhead’s Donso project It is no surprise that Pierre-Antoine Grison should gravitate to African music. His 2009 album The B Suite (put out under the name Krazy Baldhead)was a beguiling mix of tricky time signatures and polyrhythms. Originally from Marseille, Grison made his name as part of […]
Vusi Mahlasela: Say Africa (ATO Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Mahlasela, a David Ortiz-lookalike African singer-songwriter and inspirational anti-apartheid voice, has become a cause célèbre among the ATO crowd and beyond to Josh Groban and others who’ve recorded with him with the aim of spreading his messages. Say Africa, Mahlasela’s 7th album since 1992, finds him parked comfortably in Dave Mathews’s […]
Brazil: Phonobase Music Services
Brazilian label and distribution company offers artists a unique way of doing business What: A music services company and record label with an emphasis on innovative digital marketing strategies. The company blog is a stimulating source for stories about copyright and technological issues around music. Where: São Paulo, Brazil History: Founded 2007 by Juliano Polimeno. […]
Sick Puppies: Teaching Vets Some New Tricks
Joseph Spencer catches a quick backstage audience with Australian band Sick Puppies The house lights faded and the recording of a slightly ominous string quartet ensemble could be heard lingering daintily over the din of conversation from the crowd. It was as if there was suddenly the presence of ghostly apparitions in the small Watertown […]
South Korea: K-pop for the Rest of Us
There has been an explosion of South Korean music in recent years but, apart from slick pop, what else is on offer? Thanks principally to YouTube, South Korea’s videogenic K-pop is reaching a staggering audience around the world. Earlier this year, boy band Big Bang’s EP Tonight received high placings on iTunes charts in various […]
Ben Ottewell: Shapes & Shadows (ATO Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Of the three main singers in the Guster-style folk-infused, Brit-alt band Gomez, Ottewell is the one who sounds like Eddie Vedder (Ottewell sang ‘See the World’ and most of their other sellable stuff, thus it’s awful white of him to downplay his importance to the band in the press release for […]
Donny McCaslin: Perpetual Motion (Greenleaf Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Given that he’s as comfortable with standards and fusion-workouts as he is with modern experimentation, it’d be correct to tag jazz sax player McCaslin as a firebrand voice of the current New Yawk pack. In this ninth solo record, he’s free as a bird, his flights accelerated by the whizz-bang keyboards […]
The Bronx Casket Co.: Antihero (E1 Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger BCC is headed up by D.D. Verni, bassist and founding member of New York thrash metal crew Overkill, which of course spells depleted punk soil and a little bit of kidding around in this band’s first LP in 5 years. The kidding-around part this time – they did a version of […]
Todd Clouser: A Love Electric (Ropeadope Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Oft-noisy guitar-jazz for the Touch of Gray set. Berklee-trained Clouser is a Minneapolis native based out of Baja, Mexico, his tastes partial to Monk and ‘70s rock – Curtis Mayfield, too – in equal measure. This LP isn’t the smoothest of listens nor does it want to be. In ‘Meet Me […]
Carrie Rodriguez and Ben Kyle: We Still Love Our Country (Ninth Street Opus Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Attention to hayseed detail helped place this one-off in the Top 10 of the Americana Music Association charts, where Decembrists and Gregg Allman are also holding court at this writing. The EP’s title was an unfortunate choice, as some people might run screaming from anything threatening to be NASCAR-ified ‘Let the […]
David Lowery: The Palace Guards (429 Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger The long and short here is Tom Petty after a total eels bender, some rockabilly, some Pavement chill, overall a very cohesive affair that has some serious high points. Lowery was a co-founder of Camper Van Beethoven, a trivia nugget that never fails to impress a few punk history buffs. But […]
