Latest Adds 3/21/06
DATE: 3.21.06ARTIST: Bela Fleck
TITLE: The Hidden Land (Columbia)
GENRE: BLUEGRASS/PROGRESSIVE
GRADE: A-
REVIEW: They sound like nobody but themselves. Without attempting to update or make any adjustments to their sound (save mercifully trimming the vocals) they have made possibly the sharpest Flecktones record yet. It is virtuoso music, through and through. The tastefulness of the Flecktones' palette aside, The Hidden Land is the sound of four real musicians playing real music, and the pleasures are many. The album's beginning drops from the aforementioned Bach right into the fugue-like be-bop of "P'lod in the House," where Fleck, Wooten, and Coffin's unison lines fan out and shift cleverly into counterpoint (before Future Man drops the tempo to a mild swing). On "Weed Whacker," a subtly high-stepping Wooten groove sets up a torrential banjo flurry (laced, in turn, by Coffin) that feeds into a seven-and-a-half minute tour de force performance by the ensemble. Almost every minute of the album is characterized by the Flecktones' instinctual dialogue.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 2,5,7,10,12
REVIEWER: excerpt from www.jambands.com
DATE: 3.21.06
ARTIST: Tres Chicas
TITLE: Bloom, Red & the Ordinary Girl (Yep Roc)
GENRE: COUNTRY/ALT
GRADE: A-
REVIEW: All the Shade Trees in Bloom" is one of several songs on this second release from harmony-rock trio Tres Chicas that makes a strong case for centerpiece status. Among many other virtues, it has a chorus that pleads "I want something beautiful, I want something true." For that, look no further than the surrounding songs. There's the stunning "Drop Me Down," a cover from the catalog of Charlotte band Lou Ford. Equally attractive are Bloom's two other non-originals, "My Love" from gifted Yep Roc mate Geraint Watkins (solo artist, Balham Alligator, and keyboard man for the likes of Van Morrison and Nick Lowe) and a breezy, pedal steel-nudged version of country-popper Johnny Carver's 1971 near-hit "If You Think That It's All Right." A revisiting of "Slip So Easily," written by Chica Lynn Blakey and originally recorded by Glory Fountain, somehow finds new layers of loveliness in a song that was drop-dead gorgeous from the start. There are other cuts--Blakey's "Sway" and Cary's "Still I Run," come to mind--that would be the unquestionable belles of any other ball. But for a definition of beauty, listen to how the three voices circle and then embrace in the aforementioned chorus of "All the Shade Trees in Bloom." A well-traveled, London-based band of Watkins, drummer Robert Trehern, and bassist Matt Radford enrich the Chicas' acoustic guitar/electric guitar/violin core to produce something that's not quite folk-rock and not quite six-eyed soul; occasionally, it's even not quite jazz. With those three voices that were born to blend out in front, it's truly a beautiful thing.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1,3,4,6,11,12
REVIEWER: excerpts from www.indy.com
DATE: 3.21.06
ARTIST: Nightmares On Wax
TITLE: In A Space Outta Sound (Warp)
GENRE: ELECTRONICA
GRADE: A+
REVIEW: George Evelyn, the co-founder and now sole member of Nightmares on Wax, has been making music under the moniker for almost twenty years, but this ranks with his best. It's a perfect chill-out record, readymade for a sunny day or starry night, and it straddles the line between evolving style and signature sound brilliantly. While his DJ Kicks mix in 2000 revealed his inner hip-hop head, In a Space Outta Sound is swimming in soul. But the vocals never overpower the songs, like on "The Sweetest," one of the best tracks. A simple refrain plays out over a morphing beat, with everything intermingling until the song isn't about vocals or music but mood. The feeling carries over to nearly every track: this is a decidedly mellow listening experience.Late in the album, "I Am You" offers a stunning vocal performance by Zero 7 collaborator Mozez, and closer "African Pirates," the record's most upbeat, percussion-heavy track, still manages to maintain a steady mood.Music like that on In a Space Outta Sound often pays the price at the critic chopping block for its lightness, mostly because of its audience, but also because it borrows from - and is reminiscent of - the least confrontational styles of music. But there is no real substitute for top-shelf down-tempo music when you're in the mood for it. Luckily, there are still some people around interested in providing just that.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 2,3,6,10,12
REVIEWER: excerpts from www.prefixmag.com
DATE: 3.21.06
ARTIST: Derek Trucks Band
TITLE: Songlines (Columbia)
GENRE: ROCK/MAINSTREAM
GRADE: A
REVIEW: Guitarist Derek Trucks doesn't play like a 26-year old. But, then again, he didn't play like an 18-year old when his first album came out, either. Even given Trucks' prodigious talents, which had guitar fans gasping by the time he was 12, "Songlines" is a vastly mature effort that shows real artistic growth for the Florida-born artist. Part of Trucks' greatness, one might venture to guess, is that he is either fearless or oblivious. Either way, he's seemingly never thought twice about what might be expected of him, and has always just gone where his fingers lead him. That adventurous spirit can be clearly heard on "Songlines" as the guitarist--who splits time between leading his own band and performing as part of the Allman Brothers--melds an array of different styles into one fluid sound. He goes Deep South for the hardcore blues tune "Volunteered Slavery" and then samples some Middle Eastern flavors on the great "Sahib Teri Bandi/Maki Madni." He revs up his engine for the bluesy slide-guitar moaner "Chevrolet" and then grooves on reggae beats for "Sailing On."In all, it's such an impressive and mature outing that it's nearly impossible to believe it was delivered by a 26-year old. Somebody check his birth certificate.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1,4,5,6,8,11
REVIEWER: www.livedaily.com
DATE: 3.21.06
ARTIST: Shannon McNally
TITLE: North American Ghost Music (Back Porch)
GENRE: ROCK/MAINSTREAM
GRADE: A
REVIEW: Shannon McNally follows up her aesthetic and critical breakthrough, Geronimo, with a live record on Backporch. First off, the title is interesting in how it relates to the set itself. Basically, she's reliving her own ghosts with five tunes from the aforementioned recording and two from her major-label debut, Jukebox Sparrows. In fact, she opens with a raw, completely supercharged reading of "Bolder Than Paradise," singing it with a rasp and burning guitars, pulling it out of the past and putting it in front of a crowd as something that has been shape-shifted out from under the production team's hands. This is the way the song should have always sounded. It's immediate, lean, wild, and barely contained inside her throat as she all but spits out the lyrics as the band rides high behind her. The same goes for "Down and Dirty," also from Jukebox, which finds itself left empty of its original meaning and treatment and here actually returns to the grit and mud-soaked RB intention of its songwriter in the grain of her voice. Of the songs from Geronimo, the spirit was always there. There are a pair of covers here as well. There's a fine version of John Dawson's (remember the New Riders of the Purple Sage?) country lament "The Last Lonely Eagle," and a gorgeous version of Sharon Vaughn's "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys." Ultimately, this album may be a stopover between studio recordings, or just another shot to boost McNally's visibility. Either way, it doesn't matter. It's raw and immediate, and captures her at her best. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1,3,5,7,9
REVIEWER:
DATE: 3.21.06
ARTIST: Jackie Greene
TITLE: American Myth (Verve)
GENRE: rock/mainstream
GRADE: A
REVIEW: Who says they don't make classic rock anymore? On his fourth album and major-label debut, Jackie Greene lofts one for the ages. Untouched by contemporary trends or post-punk postulations, the 25-year-old folk-rocker from Sacramento has made a timeless album containing an entire world of music. Produced by Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, "American Myth" takes a more straight-ahead rock approach than Greene's previous independent releases, although he finds plenty of room for folky acoustic pieces. With a rhythm section he borrowed from Elvis Costello, Greene sings like an old soul, with a sound that moves from Eagles-style country rock to crunching bluesy rock that might recall the Yardbirds. Wisps of Dylan float across the tracks and half-remembered bits cribbed from the Beatles and the Byrds poke their heads into the songs. But Greene is his own man. He can be scornful ("Hollywood") or comforting ("I'll Let You In"). He can cut a ringing chorus ("When You're Walking Away" and "Farewell, So Long, Goodbye"). But he is best in the quiet moments of his songs, alive with quick images and darting wordplay. Every track bristles with his raw emotionalism and the signature sound of his guitar finger-picking. He is the real deal. On "American Myth," Greene has more than fulfilled the promise he showed on his early releases. He hit this one out of the park.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 2,5,8,11,12
REVIEWER: www.sfgate.com
DATE: 3.21.06
ARTIST: Nicolai Dunger
TITLE: Here's My Song... (Zoe)
GENRE: rock/mainstream
GRADE: A+
REVIEW: Nicolai Dunger, 37, was born too late to be the end-of-the-1960s songwriter he longs to be. He savors every slur, every drawl, every mumbled syllable and cracked, loopy phrase of singers such as Van Morrison, Tim Hardin and Tim Buckley along with Buckley's son, Jeff. His new album is a set of songs about a breakup, with the deliberately awkward title Here's My Song, You Can Have It I Don't Want It Anymore/Yours 4-ever. Dunger recorded it with Mercury Rev, a band from Kingston, N.Y., that usually plays stately neo-psychedelic anthems. It's fully a collaboration: Dunger's guitar makes way for Mercury Rev's keyboards and moments of pop gloss, and he trades three-chord songs for music with harmonic twists suggesting the Beatles. Mercury Rev's mastery of the subtle but irreversible crescendo pushes Dunger toward some wrenching vocal peaks. But he can also make Mercury Rev speed up and rock out, and his voice, with all its vagaries, brings the ethereal band down to Earth.
Dunger's relentless introspection isn't for every mood; it could certainly be tough on a romance. But Here's My Song is just the album for a good wallow in yearning and obsession.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1,4,5,7,8
REVIEWER: www.southflorida.com
DATE: 3.21.06
ARTIST: Various Artists
TITLE: I Am The Resurrection (Vanguard)
GENRE: FOLK
GRADE: A
REVIEW: The most striking aspect of the 13 tracks compiled on this anthology is how much Fahey belongs in the American canon alongside acknowledged masters. The interpretations of Fahey’s tunes bring out aspects of his music often hidden behind the man’s brilliant playing. One can hear echoes of Aaron Copeland’s simple folk motifs in Sufjan Stevens’ “Variation on ‘Commemorative Transfiguration and Communion at Magruder Park”, strains of Scott Joplin’s rags in M.Ward’s “Bean Vine Blues #2”, Charles Ives’ playful patriotism in Howe Gelb’s “My Grandfather’s Clock”, George Gershwin’s celebration of the absurd aspects modern life in Peter Case’s “When the Catfish is in Bloom”, etc. The artists are probably not trying to connect Fahey to a line of national art, anymore than Fahey himself consciously drew from those composers’ works. Fahey just went to the same primary sources for inspirations as they did.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1,3,4,5,7,12,13
REVIEWER: WWW.POPMATTERS.COM
DATE: 3.21.06
ARTIST: Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan
TITLE: Ballad of the Broken Seas (V2)
GENRE: rock/alt
GRADE: A
REVIEW:The paramount mistake to be made is considering Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell opposites. Lanegan’s performance here is a distillation of his prodigious and pliable solo catalogue, one often suffocated by the more public association he has with Screaming Trees and Queens of The Stone Age. Quite a few would consider him a calorie-free Tom Waits, yet Lanegan’s voice is made of differently textured gravel that can at times betray and conjure more complex meaning. But a major break with the “beauty and the beast” narrative is Isobel Campbell, whose only similarity to that tale is being a member of the Glaswegian guild possessing half of the same name—Belle and Sebastian. Campbell wrote almost all of the songs contained here and it’s her sense of orchestration that elevates quite a few of the pieces from middling, slightly disengaging selections to emotionally resonant and aurally potent wonders like “Revolver” and “Black Mountain.” It’s the strings that pretty much save the instrumental “It’s Hard to Kill a Bad Thing” and the poppy “Honey Child What Can I Do?” as well as being indicative of the extent to which Campbell took the reins of the album in general. Ballad of the Broken Seas isn’t Lanegan and Campbell combining like a Voltron of the embittered, lachrymal traveler and the timid, wistful chanteuse, but an attempt to make material a vision of mutual founding. That’s why there’s no cacophony and very little white noise: the finished product is essentially of a common mind.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1,3,6,8,9,12
FCC: 4 “FUCK”
REVIEWER: www.stylusmagazine.com
DATE: 3.21.06
ARTIST: Umphrey's McGee
TITLE: Safety In Numbers (Sci Fidelity)
GENRE: Rock/Mainstream
GRADE: A
REVIEW: UM formed in South Bend and played at the Bluebird a lot
as they were coming up. They are too big for the 'Bird now, as their progressive rock sound takes them to bigger venues. Not just a noodly jam band, these guys have great musical skills, a sense of humor and dare to take their songs through surprising twists. Somehow they don't get too out-there, accessibility is part of their appeal.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1,3,6,8,10
REVIEWER: Jim Manion/WFHB
DATE: 3.21.06
ARTIST: Howe Gelb
TITLE: 'Sno Angel Like You (Thrill Jockey)
GENRE: rock/alt
GRADE: A+
REVIEW: Howe Gelb continues on his prolific post-Giant Sand streak with a strong set of songs recorded with a gospel choir. This is not gospel music per se, but Howe Gelb music augmented by the punch and deep soul of a great gospel choir.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS:
REVIEWER: Jim Manion/WFHB
DATE: 3.21.06
ARTIST: Josh Ritter
TITLE: The Animal Years (V2)
GENRE: Folk/SS
GRADE: A
REVIEW: The Animal Years represents a departure for Ritter in a number of ways- it’s less folky, it’s more poppy and accessible and it’s more genuinely an artefact of American culture and songwriting than anything he’s done before. It’s mainstream feel (propelled by Brian Deck of all people) and the sheer optimistic dynamism of most of the songs could at last launch Ritter firmly into the American consciousness as a talent of serious dimensions. The album’s centrepiece is “Thin Blue Flame”, which remembers the London subway bombs, panic and horror of 7/7. A near ten minute rant / epic poem, it’s worthy of a number of Ritter’s influences, from William Blake to Leonard Cohen, and seems to reference disgust for the Bush Administration, anger at God, anger at what we’ve done to the earth, joy at the love of friends and wonder at what can happen on those mornings when you wake to a “clear blue sky”. Opener “Girl In the War” has been a long time live favourite, and although sparkly and wondrous, is perhaps less impactful for a new, more complex arrangement; it remains an astounding and moving outing involving saints and girls with remarkable eyes. “Idaho” is a straight and unadorned hymn for Ritter’s homestate. “Here At the Right Time” is the closer and is a piano-led and wistful. What we have here is a soul who’s breaking out of his original strictures, trying new arrangements and somehow managing ten minute songs which are utterly compelling. What we have here is a Walker Evans, a Jonathan Franzen, a Townes Van Zandt- a genuine through-and-through American icon whose literary and musical abilities will charm and move for generations to come.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1,3,5,10,11
REVIEWER: www.americana-uk.com
DATE: 3.21.06
ARTIST: Mike Younger
TITLE: Every Stone You Throw (Nashanoke)
GENRE: ROCK/MAINSTREAM
GRADE: A-
REVIEW: Straightforward roots-flavored rock from Canadian Mike Younger. There is more than a passing resemblence to John Mellencamp, especially in the vocal nuances and timing. For those who like their rock straight up with a good crunchy band punching through the songs.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 2,4,5,8,9
REVIEWER: Jim Manion/WFHB
DATE: 3.21.06
ARTIST: Ben Harper
TITLE: Both Sides of the Gun (Virgin)
GENRE: rock/mainstream
GRADE: A
REVIEW: Ben Harper flips both sides of his musical coin on his first solo album in three years, Both Sides Of The Gun. The two-disc set is sonically arranged so that the harder-edged material is featured on the first CD, while his softer songs can be found on platter two. The Claremont, California singer/songwriter/guitarist, self-produced the album and played all the instruments on a number of songs.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: CD1: 2,4,6,7 CD2: 1,2,4,6,7
REVIEWER: www.chartattack.com
DATE: 3.21.06
ARTIST: Kris Kristofferson
TITLE: This Old Road (New West)
GENRE: COUNTRY
GRADE: A
REVIEW: The best songs on Kris Kristofferson's comeback album, "This Old Road," simply feature the veteran singer-songwriter and his acoustic guitar.These are powerful songs, delivered with humble grace. Some are socially conscious -- "Wild American," "Pilgrim's Progress" and "The Burden of Freedom" -- but "In the News" is a gut-wrencher torn from the headlines: "Read about the sorry way he done somebody's daughter/ Chained her to a heavy thing and threw her in the water." Kristofferson, who turns 70 in June, enlisted Don Was (Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones) to produce this sparse, rough-hewn collection of folk and outlaw-country songs. Was (bass, piano), Jim Keltner (drums) and Stephen Bruton (guitar, mandolin) also back up the living legend on his first album of new songs in nearly a dozen years. The rugged outlaw tune "Chase the Feeling" is the best.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1,2,4,6,7,9
REVIEWER: www.seatlepi.com
ALSO ADDED AT WFHB:
Various Artists Traveler 06 Six Degrees
Califone Roomsound Thrill Jockey
Sean Watkins Blinders On Sugar Hill
Matt Angus Matt Angus Black Potato
Willie Nelson You Don't Know Me Lost Highway
posted by WFHB Music @ 11:08:00 AM
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