WFHB ADDS 10/23
DATE: 10/23/06ARTIST:The Gothic Archies
TITLE: The Tragic Treasury (Nonesuch )
GENRE: rock/alt
GRADE: A-
REVIEW: Those at all familiar with the works of either Snicket/Handler or Merritt should have a basic idea of what they are getting into when dropping the needle on the first track of the album. The album flows in linear form, starting with the aforementioned "Scream And Run Away" which is attached to the first book in the series The Bad Beginning. Each successive song corresponds to the next entry in the series. Merritt delivers the wry and sinisterly satiric lyrics with a gravelly Solomon Grundy voice dwelling in the empty stomach growling recesses of the lower bass register.This is a tongue-in-cheek boutique project aimed at the hardcore and the curious more than anything. Borrowing heavily from the quirky elements of klezmer, Kurt Weil, and German cabaret, Merritt and Snicket/Handler have crafted a musical world that whimsically compliments the snarky, mothic (that would be mock gothic), and thoroughly twisted world of the Beaudelaire orphans.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: Definitely Download:
1. "Scream And Run Away", 2. "Dreary, Dreary", 3. "This Abyss",
4. "Crows", 5. "Freakshow", 6. "How Do You Slow This Thing Down?"
REVIEWER: ign.com
DATE: 10/23/06
ARTIST: Fink
TITLE:Biscuits for Breakfast (Ninjatune)
GENRE: folk/ss
GRADE: A
REVIEW: The largely acoustic Biscuits for Breakfast is probably the least typical release in the entire Ninja Tune catalogue, a surprise until you learn that Fink once laboured at the same synths, beats and scratches coalface for which the label is best known. With a weather eye on changing musical fashions, he's done a nifty volte-face to present himself as a funky folk-blues singer in the mould of Jeb Loy Nichols or G Love. The opener (and debut single) "Pretty Little Thing" is typical of Fink's style: a sparse, stripped-down funk groove of acoustic guitar, rimshots and an intermittent tremor of organ behind his languid, bluesy vocal; it's warm and welcoming without placing too many demands on the listener. Elsewhere, the occasional curlicue of slide guitar adds subtle detail to a cover of Alison Moyet's "All Cried Out", and a restrained ripple of piano underscores "Biscuits", Fink's account of the brain-numbing drudgery of his time as an office tea-boy. There's an understated charm about the album which recalls Seventies predecessors such as John Martyn and J J Cale: while Fink's not in the same virtuoso class as a guitarist, there's a steady, calm centre to his work that echoes their sultry, laidback manner.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1, 4, 5, 6, 8
FCC: 9 (“FUCK”)
REVIEWER: independent.co.uk
DATE: 10/23/06
ARTIST:Lloyd Cole
TITLE:Antidepressent (One Little Indian)
GENRE: rock/alt
GRADE: A
REVIEW: After Lloyd Cole's twentysomething years of making music, first with his band the Commotions and then solo, his career had become somewhat rote — an album every couple of years, but nothing that seemed especially inspired. His latest disc changes that perception; it's a stirring set of songs. The title track establishes the scenario: a narcotic confession that touts the advantages of chemical supplements as a cure for dysfunction. Leadoff track "The Young Idealists" is equally inspired and just as descriptive in its reflective tale of optimism subverted by the realities of career and commitment. Yet, despite the guarded sentiments, the music is surprisingly seductive, from the lovely strings and acoustic fretwork that underscore Cole's paean to Manhattan, "NYC Sunshine," to the lovely, shimmering piano lines that caress "Slip Away." He even evokes the wandering spirit of Johnny Cash on the sprightly "Traveling Light," providing further assurance that Antidepressant has all the lift it needs.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1, 2, 3, 8, 9
REVIEWER: Lee Zimmerman miaminewtimes.com
DATE: 10/23/06
ARTIST: Mamadou Diabate
TITLE: Heritage (World Village)
GENRE: INTERNATIONAL/AFRICA/MALI
GRADE: A+
REVIEW: While this is not exactly the same band that came to Lotus with Mamadou, it's pretty close and the music is essentially the same – rhythmic and lilting polyrhythmic rhythms and melodies, topped off with the beautifal kora, an instrument with a history of more than 1,000 years. All tracks fairly mellow but also very exciting. Will trigger great Lotus 2006 memories if you got a chance to see him and his band.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: ALL
REVIEWER: Jim Manion/WFHB
DATE: 10/23/06
ARTIST: Anne McCue
TITLE:Koala Motel (Messenger)
GENRE:FOLK/SS/AMERICANA
GRADE: B+
REVIEW: If you’re of a certain age and inclination, you’ll welcome Anne McCue’s Koala Motel as kin to Pretenders II, Shoot Out the Lights and Rumours. But while some artists boast their influences like a window display at a trendy vintage store, counting the gems on the Australian singer/songwriter/guitarist’s second disc is like walking through an art gallery, with something to delight and intrigue at every turn. There’s the fuzzed-up scrim of her blues guitar on “As the Crow Flies”; the harmonies (with John Doe), reminiscent of Richard and Linda Thompson, in “Driving Down Alvarado”; the plaintive country edge of “Shivers.” On this last track, she’ll remind you a little of Lucinda Williams—not surprising, since Williams’ crony Dusty Wakeman co-produced. But where Williams offers frail, frayed edges, McCue sounds like her alto just came out of God’s workshop. She’s confident, polished, smart and Koala Motel is wholly original—and indelible.
By Pamela Murray Winters
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 12
REVIEWER: harp magazine
DATE: 10/23/06
ARTIST:Guy Clark
TITLE: Workbench Songs
GENRE: folk/ss
GRADE: A
REVIEW: The title of this album would seem a tad precious applied to the releases of the majority of Nashville musicians. But Guy Clark--song craftsman, guitar builder--has been doing such finely measured work for all of his storied career that "Workbench Songs" aptly sums up the pride and precision he brings to these 11 offerings. Joined by cowriters Darrell Scott, Rodney Crowell, Gary Nicholson, Lee Roy Parnell, and Verlon Thompson, Clark is at turns wry and poignant in chronicling human acts great and small. And, as usual with his albums, a number of these songs resonate long after first listen. "Walkin' Man," a Celtic-flavored demo recording which kicks off the set, pays homage to the pilgrims and searchers--Gandhi and Woody Guthrie--who had the courage to make their own path. "Out in the Parkin' Lot," the Darrell Scott collaboration which Clark recorded on 1997's live Keepers, has a more lived-in feel here, and better captures the novelistic scene of roadhouse rowdiness. Clark knows how to deliver these gems with optimum emotional impact: His cover of Townes Van Zandt's aching "No Lonesome Tune" goes bone-deep despite its underplayed pathos, as does "The Randall Knife"-ish "Funny Bone," about a rodeo clown brought down by faithless love. But he's no less affecting on "Tornado Time in Texas," a jaunty country-blues tune spiked with a shuffle chorus, or on "Cinco De Mayo in Memphis," a wildly surrealistic snapshot of Mexican deckhands in the blue-suede-shoes territory of Graceland. Last year, the Americana Music Association honored Clark with its Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriter. This album is further proof that he deserved it.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 fcc: (“shit”)
REVIEWER: -Alanna Nash amazon.com
DATE: 10/23/06
ARTIST: Alela Diane
TITLE: The Pirate's Gospel
GENRE: folk/ss
GRADE: A
REVIEW: In the 11 songs of Alela Diane's debut album, The Pirate's Gospel, there is barely a reference—musically or otherwise—to the past decade. Or the one before that. Or before that, for that matter. She's written the sort of timeless, abstract songs that are endangered or extinct outside of folk music, and are still rare within it. This isn't to say that there's anything like oblivion on this record. Diane has an amazing gift: The ability to fill anyone's shoes but her own, hanging her sparse forest folk songs on beautiful and honest little snippets of a world based on shared sense and feeling. This sense of communal expression carries throughout the music as well. Her voice—a boundless throat tempered by an obvious humility and creeping tendrils of vocal smoke—channels (in the immediate) hipster ironists CocoRosie, but if there's any justice will fall closer to Jolie Holland or Billie Holiday as a cultural imprint. Overall, the album is filled with an extremely self-aware traditionalism that, in the hands of such a talented songwriter with a keen sense of timelessness, is, at least, refreshing. It's amazing this is a debut album from a 22-year-old songwriter. But, again, for Ms. Diane, youth and time are meaningless things. In what may be a rare moment of wearing her own shoes, she opens wide the record with the line "punish the youth from my eyes." Not too fast, though. Please.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10
REVIEWER: MICHAEL BYRNE Willmette Weekly
ALSO ADDED:
Summer Hymns Backward Masks Misra
Wayne Hancock Tulsa Bloodshot
Frida Hyvonen Until Death Comes Secretly Canadian
posted by WFHB Music @ 5:06:00 PM
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