WFHBADDS 10/31/06
DATE:10.30.06ARTIST: Willie Nelson
TITLE: Songbird (Lost Highway)
GENRE: COUNTRY
GRADE: A+
REVIEW: Willie Nelson, at 73, could be the grandfather of his first-time producer, Ryan Adams, who turns 32 next month.
They share several traits: They issue albums with a dizzying frequency; they regularly mix the transcendent with the forgettable; and they shift styles and collaborators with no apparent pattern. "Songbird" may be credited to Nelson, but it's truly a joint effort. Adams' band, the Cardinals, lays down the tracks, and the arrangements sound more like Adams' album "Jacksonville City Nights" than anything Nelson has ever recorded. Moreover, the song selection shows Adams' predilection for the sounds of the '70s, as Nelson covers the Grateful Dead's "Stella Blue," Gram Parsons' "$1000 Wedding" and Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird." Still, Nelson's the only voice we hear, and his sly, mystical intonation and jazzy, heavy-string acoustic guitar blends well with the Cardinals' loping Americana sound. The covers, with their complex emotional themes, fit with Nelson's sage perspective.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 10
REVIEWER: Michael McCall, Associated Press
DATE: 10.30.06
ARTIST:Mosquitos
TITLE: Mosquitos III (Bar None)
GENRE: INTL/WORLD FUSION
GRADE: A-
REVIEW: They’ve been together for a while now, and the Mosquitos have their stuff together. The songs on this album float—think of an exact midpoint between indie-pop and bossa nova, and you’ve got an exact mental picture of “Love Like You” and “One” and any number of these tracks. It’s all light and smooth and fresh, like organic creamy peanut butter. Stalbach’s voice is a pretty thing—it doesn’t soar, but it flitters and flutters beautifully in and around their gorgeous settings. “Mama’s Belly” is a lovely surreal thing about being in love and/or gestation and/or breaking through to a new level of consciousness. The best thing about the Mosquitos is the fact that they’re not afraid to get psychedelic. “UFO” starts off with “I know a girl who has her head up in the clouds / she’s always up, she doesn’t want to go down / but she knows that it’s almost over.” The song gets deeper and darker, as the girl ends up curled into a ball, “a million miles away, daydreaming”; the music just gets lusher and lusher, with new strings and sitar synths and all manner of echo, until...well, gosh, it’s over, and where did it go, and what happened, and I GOTTA HEAR THAT AGAIN.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 2, 3, 5, 6, 7
REVIEWER: Matt Cibula popmatters.com
DATE: 10.30.06
ARTIST: The Lemonheads
TITLE: The Lemonheads (Vagrant)
GENRE: ROCK/ALT
GRADE: B
REVIEW: Mindful of the meltdowns that made him a punchline a decade ago, Evan Dando has handled his career resurrection with caution. 2003 saw a solid solo album, Baby I’m Bored, while last year Dando quietly reclaimed the Lemonheads name in order to perform 1992’s It’s A Shame About Ray in its entirety in London. The Lemonheads, produced by Descendents drummer Bill Stevenson (he also co-wrote several songs), is, at barely over a half-hour, another cautious step, but it’s a good ’un. Tracks such as the soaring “Black Gown” and powerpop anthem “No Backbone” are brawny, tuneful and infectious, the former featuring Garth Hudson on keys and the latter with J Mascis on guitar. Dando’s no fretboard slouch himself, frequently getting his inner Mascis on, and his vocals haven’t lost any of their offhand, smoky charm. Somewhere, infamous anti-Lemonheads fanzine Die Evan Dando, Die is no doubt planning its own resurrection, but really, Dando, and his music, is all grown up now. Don’t hate him because he’s beautiful—that would be, like, sooo ’90s.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1, 2, 4, 7, 11
fcc: 3 “MF”
REVIEWER: Fred Mills/Harp Magazine
DATE: 10.30.06
ARTIST: Gary Lucas
TITLE: Coming Clean (Mighty Quinn)
GENRE: ROCK/ALT
GRADE: A
REVIEW: Guitarist extraordinaire / Grammy-nominated songwriter Gary Lucas (Captain Beefheart, Jeff Buckley) delivers the goods with "Coming Clean"-- a new studio album featuring his longtime psychedelic rock band Gods And Monsters --and it's a killer, tying together all the diverse musical threads and then some of the man The Guardian calls "the legendary left-field guitarist". “Coming Clean" showcases Gary at the top of his game, featuring his New Wave super-group Gods And Monsters (Billy Ficca from Television and Jonathan Kane from Swans on drums, Ernie Brooks from the Modern Lovers on bass), plus special guests David Johansen (New York Dolls), Richard Barone (Bongos) and sultry French superstar Elli Medeiros along for the trip. From the title track (mixed by Talking Head Jerry Harrison) to the wild blues-rock showstopper ‘One Man's Meat’, it's a total joy and a total knockout. and includes covers of everything from Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ theme to Springsteen's ‘Ain't Got You’. Lucas plays the guitar like nobody else AND writes original, haunting songs (he-co-wrote Jeff Buckley's ‘Grace’ and ‘Mojo Pin’ and Joan Osborne's ‘Spider Web’)-- a rare talent indeed, and here at his most accessible-- a classic album from one of the most creative minds in modern rock.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13
REVIEWER: interpunk-
DATE: 10.30.06
ARTIST: Dirty Martini
TITLE: Tea and Revenge (Pampelmoose)
GENRE: ROCK/ALT
GRADE: A
REVIEW: Dirty Martini is a blissful union of three of the Pacific Northwest’s finest singer songwriters Lara Michell, Stephanie Schneiderman, and McKinley. They each had successful solo careers when they decided to do a Portland Valentine’s Day show together. It was a songwriter-in-the-round format and they each played their brutal love-will-kick-your-ass-and-leave-you-bleeding songs. The embittered, mostly single audience loved them and when they booked their next show together, they haphazardly named themselves Dirty Martini since they’d been sideways on the salty drinks during their first gig. When Gang of Four’s bass player, Dave Allen, came along and met them, he suggested they get out of the songwriter-in-the-round format in his subtle, blue collar British way, “Why don’t you stand up and be a proper band already?” Dirty Martini is now one of Portland, Oregon’s most successful groups and their second album Tea and Revenge is loaded with gorgeous harmonies, big stick-in-your-head choruses and unshakeable images. Tapping deeper into their Americana roots, there is no doubt that Dirty Martini intended to make an album that is easy to like.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1, 4, 5, 6, 8
REVIEWER: SPECTRE promo review
DATE: 10.30.06
ARTIST: Chris Theile
TITLE: How to Grow a Woman From the Ground (Sugar Hill)
GENRE: COUNTRY/ALT
GRADE: A
REVIEW: On his fifth solo outing How to Grow a Woman from the Ground, Thile again proves that he’s willing to try anything once. In tackling both The White Stripes’ Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground and The Strokes’ Heart in a Cage (WARNING! FCC #12), he improbably converts the former into a bucolic back porch romp and the latter into an easy-going country ramble. Elsewhere, Thile more convincingly tackles Jimmie Rodgers’ Brakeman’s Blues, but his own compositions — the jam-friendly instrumentals Watch ’at Breakdown and The Beekeeper, each of which features some of the album’s most intricately intertwined instrumentation, as well as the beautiful devastation of You’re an Angel and I’m Gonna Cry — are what serve as the collection’s highlights. Though there are a few tunes that fall completely flat — most notably, Stay Away and I’m Yours If You Want Me — the bulk of How to Grow a Woman from the Ground is remarkably engaging. Not only is it Thile’s finest outing to date, but it also compares quite favorably to Nickel Creek’s own canon.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1, 2, 6, 8
FCC: 12
REVIEWER: John Metzger/Music Box
DATE: 10.30.06
ARTIST:Dan Bern
TITLE: Breathe (Messenger)
GENRE: FOLK/SS
GRADE: A
REVIEW: Though he makes reference to some of the more memorably audacious claims from his previous recordings (declaring himself the returned messiah on his debut, for instance), Dan Bern finally reconciles his brazen wiseass side with his insightful, empathetic folksinger side on Breathe. Whereas albums like 1998's Fifty Eggs, on which he boasted of having balls "big as the swing of Tiger Woods," and 2001's New American Language never found a workable balance between Bern's two distinct MOs, Breathe finds Bern using his extraordinary observational eye and his wry humor within songs that give voice to fully-realized protagonists, each finding reasons to hope in a confusing, hostile world. This finally make good on all of those "next Bob Dylan" tags that Bern has picked up in the last decade. If Breathe isn't as start-to-finish exceptional as Dylan's own Modern Times, it's still as smart and catchy as most any other folk-rock album, and it's absolutely Bern's most accomplished, vital album.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 2, 4, 7, 8, 10
REVIEWER: slantmagazine.com
ALSO ADDED THIS WEEK:
Aterciopelados Oye Naciional
Ratatat Classics XL
Los Amigos Invisibles Superpop Venezuela Gozadera
posted by WFHB Music @ 5:04:00 PM
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