…includes the original album, demos, the B-side “Shame,” a previously unreleased song called “The Seventies,” and live recordings of “Long Haired Child” and “Hey Mama Wolf.”
Cripple Crow marks a departure for Devendra Banhart. It’s obvious from the faux Sgt. Pepper-meets-Incredible String Band freak scene cover photo that something is afoot. The disc is Banhart’s first foray from Michael Gira’s Young God label, and it’s more adventurous than anything he’s done before. This is not to imply that the set is a slick, over-produced affair, but it is a significant change. The instrumental, stylistic, and textural range on this 23-song set is considerably wider than it’s been in the past. Working with Noah Georgeson and Thom Monahan, a backing band of…
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…includes a bonus 12” of the 1994 ‘Machine Cuisine’ EP, and a download of 17 additional songs, including rare singles, compilation tracks, and unreleased material. All the material has been freshly mastered by JJ Golden.
Herky-jerky pandemonium rife with buzzing guitars and spooky, deliberately melodramatic synth and Moog lines, Severe Exposure is filled with tight, paranoid riffs that fulfills the deepest wish of anyone who ever wanted to find out what the unholy progeny of Big Black and Devo would sound like. Although there isn’t much sonic variety — and some of their attempts at humor are downright silly — the Satellites command attention with their unrelenting musical intensity and singer J. Ryan’s frantic, hell’s-bursting-loose…
This September 2015 concert was legendary even before a note was played. There was no better act to reproduce the Joe Cocker/Leon Russell led infamous Mad Dogs & Englishmen ensemble than the Tedeschi Trucks Band. Like the lineup that crisscrossed the county in Spring of 1970 with Russell as the captain that organized and steered this hulking ship, TTB’s sprawling outfit taps into soul, blues, rock and roll and gospel with a mindset comparable to the initial one-off aggregation of musicians, singers, pets, friends, relatives and hangers on.
But distinct that ragtag gathering, TTB are organized, professional and above all structured, words that could not consistently be claimed about the 1970 MD&E concept.
…The ‘gay church folk’ project began back in 2001 when Canadian singer-songwriter Joel Gibb wrote Ecce Homo, The Hidden Cameras’ first album. He gathered up a group of musicians, singers and go go dancers to perform his lush queer pop live. Sometimes two dozen bodies – wearing only tight white pants and balaclavas or gold sequin bikinis, playing harps, plinking xylophones, strumming guitars – would sway and writhe around Gibb. Backed by a choir, soaked in soft string music, the Hidden Cameras became legendary for their eccentric, transcendent shows in churches, parks, art galleries, porn cinemas. Members of the audience – their congregation – would be wrapped in ribbons, invited into the loosey-goosey, loved-up throng. The fluid troupe of…
The original album plus rarities and b-sides, all remastered by Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound.
A strange thing happens before the two-minute mark in “Saeglopur.” All the twinkling and cooing erupts, at what might seem like eight minutes earlier than normal, into a cathartic blast of tautly constructed group noise — or, as those who prefer songs and motion over moods and atmospheres might say, “The good part comes.” “Saeglopur” is emblematic of Sigur Rós‘ fourth album, released nearly three years (!) after ( ). Nothing resembles a drone, and no part of it could be described as funereal. Even so, Takk… is still very much a Sigur Rós album, due in large part to the ever-present otherworldly vocals, but also because the only real changes are the activeness of…
…contains 3 CDs: the remastered album, rehearsals/soundcheck from their Aug. 12, 1975, show at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall, and performances from their June 21, 1976, concert at Pennsylvania’s historic Tower Theatre.
Blues for Allah came on the heels of the Dead’s self-imposed (and ultimately) brief hiatus which began in October 1974 following a run of five shows at San Francisco’s Winterland. After recharging in November and December, the band began thinking about a new album in January. Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Donna Jean Godchaux, and Keith Godchaux would set up camp at Weir’s home studio in Mill Valley, California. Rather than perfecting songs in the studio which had been…
After a period of nearly four years, David Bowie’s series of “Eras” box sets is returning with a new, final volume. 13-CD or 18-LP box I Can’t Give Everything Away (2002-2016) picks up where 2021’s Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001) left off, capturing the final years of an artist who never stopped innovating.
The set contains new pressings of: Heathen (2002); Reality (2003); A Reality Tour (recorded 2003, released 2010); The Next Day (2013); The Next Day Extra (2013); Blackstar (2016); and the No Plan EP (2017). All but the last two have been newly remastered for this set. The set also premieres Montreux Jazz Festival: July 18, 2022 on 2 CDs and includes a sixth and final volume of Re:Call, featuring 41 tracks on 3 CDs.
There is a reason Emma Swift calls The Resurrection Game, her first full-length collection of all original material, a “bummer of an album,” as it took coming back from a mental health crisis for the singer-songwriter to develop these ten tracks.
The Sydney, Australia-born, Nashville-based Swift had a major nervous breakdown, leading her to be hospitalized for weeks and work for over a year to recover from her fragile state. Dealing with this mental pain, she somehow managed to turn these feelings of fear and helplessness into works of art. Teaming up with producer Jordan Lehning (Kacey Musgraves, Rodney Crowell) Swift gathered some of Nashville’s brightest and decamped to Chale Abbey studio on the Isle of Wight.
The island’s sense of isolation fed into…
A lot can be conveyed through minimal movement. A simple raised eyebrow shot towards a comment can showcase a lack of trust, an involuntary smile can highlight the love between people, and an acoustic, lyric-driven ballad can encapsulate an entire life’s journey. The closest most of us will get to a conversation with an artist we admire is through the vulnerability expressed in their music. A soft, slow, simplistic cut off an album begins to showcase an artist’s approach to songwriting and storytelling, and says a lot about the level of honesty an artist is willing to reach in order to connect with the listener.
Fruit Bats, the ever-evolving project of Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Eric D. Johnson, is no stranger to gentle, swaying balladry.
Across a dozen albums, Josh Ritter has established himself as a masterful songwriter, capable of transforming the raw stuff of human emotion into poetry that still feels deeply accessible. His talent has resonated not only with fans – music greats like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Bob Weir have also performed and recorded his songs. That wide-reaching admiration is proven out yet again on his latest release, I Believe in You, My Honeydew.
This latest record follows up last year’s mini-album Ritter recorded with jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, but is more akin to his 2023 full-length, Spectral Lines. The title refers to Ritter’s muse, which he has named Honeydew, and like many of his earlier efforts, the album’s themes cover a range of emotions from loneliness to contentment,…
A new four-song EP collecting live tracks from Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti is being released to celebrate the classic album’s 50th anniversary this year.
…The new Live EP includes live versions of ‘In My Time of Dying” and “Trampled Under Foot” from the band’s five-concert stand at London’s Earl’s Court, 1975, as well as “Sick Again” and “Kashmir” from Knebworth, 1979.
The Knebworth dates were Zeppelin’s first U.K. concerts since Earl’s Court, and first gigs overall since concluding their 1977 North American tour.
Although these were released on the 2003 Led Zeppelin DVD, this EP marks the first time they’ve been released in an audio-only format.
It’s not often you’ll hear of an artist making the best work of their career by their eighth album. However, with Baxter Dury, this couldn’t be truer.
Allbarone’s dancier feel excels due to producer Paul Epworth’s (Adele, Florence + the Machine) touches in the studio. A fortuitous meeting at Glastonbury last year brought the pair together, and their partnership here results in Dury pushing himself to go against the sonic familiarity of his more typically minimal approaches.
His Fred again.. collaboration (‘Baxter (these are my friends)’) back in 2021 offered the first signal of where Dury’s sound could travel with some dance-ready tunes thrown into the mix. Now, he has fully embraced them and penned a nine-track tour de force laden with biting…
KontaktAudio presents the first-ever official release of the ultra rare and sought after B-Semi Live 24/5/1984 cassette, a rare and explosive document capturing a crucial moment in Japan’s underground noise and industrial music scene. Recorded at the legendary B-Semi venue in Tokyo, this performance brings together three pioneers – Merzbow, Null (K.K. Null), and Nord – delivering a raw, unfiltered onslaught of early Japanese noise music in its most intense form.
This historic recording showcases the primitive power and experimental spirit that defined the early Japanese noise music scene, sitting alongside the abrasive intensity of Whitehouse, the industrial ritualism of SPK, and the mechanical destruction of Throbbing Gristle.
Who says you only live twice? After languishing for decades as the nearly men of post-punk, Manchester’s Chameleons are now in their third incarnation. And this time, undoubtedly, they’re living their best life.
Time has taken its toll on the original line-up, remembered for their three genre-defining 1980s albums and their short-lived early 2000s reformation. However, vocalist, lyricist and bass player Vox (Mark Burgess) remains at the helm, still accompanied by guitarist Reg Smithies. Second guitarist Stephen Rice, drummer Todd Demma and keyboardist Danny Ashberry complete the squad.
Once they started gigging again in 2021, Chameleons quickly outgrew their cult status and found a new, younger audience.
Followers of Gruff Rhys will know that Welsh language albums inherit a special place in his discography – and so it is with Dim Probs. Given the world climate it is brave to be releasing an album whose translated title is No Probs, but Gruff’s revelation that it was written at a low personal ebb shows the underlying positivity that continues to run through his music.
It is clear that Dim Probs was not made with a pillow over its head, nor with fingers stuck in its ears. The ironic title gives Rhys licence to work wonders with songs like ‘Taro #1 + #2’, where the former Super Furry Animals singer addresses death. A seemingly routine verse, rich with FM rock possibilities, unexpectedly cuts to a chorus where Gavin Fitzjohn’s saxophone…
Candice Ivory, “The Queen of Avant Soul,” may have already become blues music’s latest ambassador, with just her fifth album and debut for Nola Blue, the self-produced New Southern Vintage. This is her follow-up to the Grammy-nominated When the Levee Breaks: The Music of Memphis Minnie. Ivory, who lives in St. Louis, is a descendant of blues royalty. Her great-uncle Will Roy Sanders fronted one of Memphis’s historic bands, The Fieldstones. You can say that blues is in her DNA. She is proud of that and insists that though blues originated in the South, it’s now embraced globally. To that end, she invites an intergenerational cast to join her on this expansive, “big umbrella” effort, which, even with some other genres considered, never strays far from traditional blues.
John Cage might have a bit of a reputation problem. Ask a random person about him and if they remember anything, it’s probably “4’33,” his infamously silent piece of music. Perhaps if they’re a little more of a music nerd they’ll know he sometimes composed for prepared piano, a piano where the strings have objects stuffed between the strings. But between the poles of not playing anything and playing something unusually is Cage the composer. Contrasted with Cage the experimenter, this is a composer who worked with string quartets, duos and solo piano. It’s this Cage that’s the focus of the new Another Timbre release Chamber Works: 1943-1951, a set of his early music played by the ever reliable classical ensemble Apartment House.
Belgian composer and multi-instrumentalist Ward Dhoore has been touring globally for over a decade in numerous projects, including string trio Northern Resonance, and in the duo Siger, alongside his brother Hartwin.
For this solo release, Ward is joined by an eclectic group of international musicians, including Louis Favre (drums), Seraphine Stragier (cello), Daniel Herskedal (tuba), Oscar Beerten (violin) and Esther Coorevits (viola).
This is fusion folk/jazz music created with love and a modern edge. Favre’s drums lend a vibrant and subtle rhythmic power on bracing opener ‘Angela’ which builds from delicate piano to a warm and breezy affair. ‘Balloon House’ unwinds from graceful, unadorned lines into…