It's another deep week for new releases, with the latest offering from
Stephen Malkmus making most the headlines. I'm excited for the collaboration between Greg Dulli (Twilight Singers, Afghan Whigs) and Mark Lanegan (QOTSA, Screaming Trees,) see the light of day. For four years, Dulli and Lanegan have been working on
the Gutter Twins project between their own busy schedule, and it's worth the wait. Elsewhere, I'm loving the
debut EP from Fleet Foxes (even if it's hard to find) and t
he final Jamaica to Toronto release from Light in the Attic Records. Finally, it's alt-country heaven with new ones from
Jim White,
Kathleen Edwards and a special deluxe reissue of
Whiskeytown's great Stranger's Almanac.
Playlist:
New Releases 03.04.08
Album:
Gutter Twins - Saturnalia
On the face of it,
Gutter Twins seems like an inevitable pairing of two like-minded frontmen strong ties to Seattle, but even after coming up with the project, it's taken
Greg Dulli and
Mark Lanegan four years to complete this labor of love (and cigarettes). In that time, they've made time for plenty of other projects. Dulli released two
Twilight Singers albums and a solo project, while Lanegan released one solo album and contributed to too many others to list (releases from
Isobel Campbell and
Soulsavers heading the list). The result is not unlike you would expect from former frontmen from Screaming Trees and Afghan Whigs. It's cigarettes and whiskey, locked in a room with a wayward preacher, begging for your redemption. God is a common thread in these tales, and it's not surprising given that both Dulli (cocaine) and Lanegan (heroin) have helped each other at times recover from addiction. Lanegan pleads "where by the grace of God go I?" on the Catholic tinged
"Stations" and then Dulli takes over the next track,
"God's Children," complete with a chorus that's akin to a religious experience (no choir - not that kind). Heck, with all the themes of addiction, God, Catholicism and redemption through fire, it's like the album was written with
Denis Leary's Rescue Me in mind (no doubt, a song or two will make an appearance, when the series returns in 2009, as
both Dulli and
Lanegan are regularly heard there). The real fire-burner of a track here, though, is
"Idle Hands," with it's heavy guitar riff and dark "Kashmir" strings, leading to another 'raise your hands to God' chorus. And, as if in salute of the labels' 20th anniversary, it's nice see these two on
Sub Pop again, a home to both back in the early 90's (Lanegan's solo work, Dulli's
Afghan Whigs).
Free album stream from AOL"Idle Hands" [mp3]
Album:
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Real Emotional Trash
As a disclaimer, let me say upfront that everything Malkmus has released gets beamed straight to my consciousness -- my appreciation for his work knows no bounds, so my love for this album was sealed the second they printed Malkmus' name on the disc. Forgive me, then, if I compensate for this bias and take a more negative approach.
Real Emotional Trash is a goddamn jam band album.
The formula for SM appears to be to release an album full of 3-minute long pop experiments, and then get the Jicks together and jam away for the next release. SM's
solo debut was a masterpiece as far as I'm concerned, and
Pig-Lib just tried my patience.
Face The Truth again returned to great pop experiments, this time allowing for more illuminating self-commentary, and now we're back to noodlin' the night away (this time, though, with
Sleater-Kinney/Quasi drummer Janet Weiss in the fold). Of all his albums, though, this one is the most cohesive, even if the cohesion involves long guitar-based excursions.
"Gardenia" is the tightest song of the lot, tellingly, its' the only one under 3 minutes.
"Cold Son," "Baltimore" and "We Can't Help You" are other fine highlights, but in the end, this is still an album featuring a meandering 7 minute song called
"Elmo Delmo." (And, yet, I still love it.)
Download:
"Cold Son" [mp3]
Download:
"Baltimore" [mp3]
Album:
Earth, Roots & Water - Innocent Youths 
Our favorite local record label,
Light in the Attic, releases their sixth and final album in the series
Jamaica to Toronto, a project which follows the emigration of Jamaican artists to Canada, and the music that followed.
Earth, Roots & Water were formed originally as a back-up band for artists who ventured into the basement studio of
Summer Records' honcho Jerry Brown. They backed
Jackie Mitoo, Johnny Osbourne and others, before setting down their own funky grooves back in 1977.
Innocent Youths is reissued here for the first time, from the original studio masters, sounding like some long lost Kingston classic. Goes great with a cold Red Stripe, some good ganja, and four-feet tall old school speakers.
Download:
"Tribulations" [mp3]
More on the radar this week
Fleet Foxes - Sun Giant EP (MySpace)
Jim White - Transnormal SkiperooWhat Made Milwaukee Famous - What Doesn't Kill Makes You Stronger (Free album stream from AOL)
Cadence Weapon - Afterparty Babies /
Free album stream from AOLWhite Hinterland - Phylactery FactoryKathleen Edwards - Asking for FlowersBing Ji Ling - June Degrees in December /
Free album stream /
"Be Here with You," "Kathalina" [mp3]
Mia Doi Todd - GeaThe Felice Brothers - The Felice BrothersRuby Sons - Sea LionDr Dog - Passed Away, Vol. 1Hysterical - Hysterical /
Free album stream from AOLTemposhark - The Invisible Line (free AOL album stream)
Ladyhawk - ShotsBauhaus - Go Away WhiteBaumer - Were It Not For YouThese United States - A Picture of the Three of Us At the Gate to the Garden of EdenThe Oaks - Songs For Waiting (Free ecard stream) /
"The Heart is a Lonely Hunter," "Masood" [mp3]
Pretendo - Pretendo IIKelley Polar - I Need You To Hold On While The Sky Is FallingBoDeans - StillA Weather - CoveSaint Bernadette - I Wanna Tell You SomethingMurder By Death - Red of Tooth and ClawHowlin' Rain - Magnificent FriendFlogging Molly - FloatThe Black Crowes - WarpaintOur Last Night - The Ghosts Among UsReissue:
Whiskeytown - Stranger's Almanac (Deluxe Edition)tags: music, album review, gutter twins, stephen malkmus, twilight singers, rescue me, indie rock, new releases, rhapsody
I made much of the party in sound that is The Saturday Knights debut, Mingle, some two months ago, and recently, it made it to #1 on CMJ. If that isn't enough, their label, the excellent Light in the Attic Records, is letting you download the album for free. Right now. Limited time. Go. Now.
The latest from Austin's The Black Angels isn't actually due in stores for another month, but through the ingenuity of Drake fave label Light in the Attic Records, you can go to participating stores and buy a pre-sale card for $12.99, which gives you a unique online code to download tracks from LITA. Then, once May 13th arrives, you can go back to the store and pick up your deluxe embossed CD digipak release, with bonus CD EP of 4 unreleased tracks. It's a brilliant move on LITA's part, even knowing that this is The Black Angels last release on the label (they've since signed on with Interscope imprint Suretone). Because the virtual purchase also also buys you the CD, Directions to See a Ghost should get a corresponding spike on Billboard it's first week. Still won't be top 40, mind you, but it's bound to get LITA a heatseeker notice, which is a good way for the Angels to leave the label that gave them their start. Enough about the delivery of Directions -- how does it sound? Is saying it's Passover pt. 2 a bad thing? It might be pure laziness on my part, but if you liked their debut, you're going to like this one as well. The hypnotic Velvet Underground-meets-13th Floor Elevators sound is still on full display, should be enough to go on. If the one-two punch of openers "You On The Run" and "Doves" doesn't grab you, then try "Mission District," which effortlessly transports you to the Bay Area's pyschedelic past.
Listening to the Bay Area's Lyrics Born won't get you any street cred, but who needs the street when planning a party. LB's funk grooves and good time party rap aren't the kind of joints that speak of a hard-knock life, but the good natured funk grooves are too infectious to worry about being 'authentic.' He's no Young MC, though, as LB's got a full band behind him now, recalling some of the Gap Band grooves along with party beats not unlike those that Afrika Bambaataa employed during his heyday. Hot tracks like "Don't Change," "Hott 2 Deff" and "I Like It, I Love It" will make many mixes in the coming summer, each proof in their own way that there's no shame in loving a little LB.
Frenchman Anthony Gonzalez (aka M83) gives up some of the My Bloody Valentine layered guitars for an ode to 80's synth acts like Cocteau Twins and early Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (who fittingly enough, this week see the reissue of their great 1983 album Dazzle Ships). The lush 80's soundscapes explore the themes of youth, so you have to forgive the lyrics at times, which sometimes seem like the scratchings from a Pee-Chee. "Kim & Jessie" is pure 80's brilliance, capturing young lovers who have a secret hiding place, and "Graveyard Girl" is a deliberate nod in the direction of the John Hughes' film Pretty in Pink, even name dropping Molly Ringwald. Too bad this album wasn't done two years ago, as it would've been perfect for Sofia Coppola's re-imagined Marie Antoinette, with it's rich new wave textures. It's an album that hits a bullseye on the target it's aiming for, but I can't help feeling that in a month or so I won't be as drawn to it's charms, unlike, say, Pretty in Pink.
Karen Dalton's In My Own Time (1971) was a collector's item fetching a pretty penny by music collectors. Back in the early Greenwich folk days, Dalton was considered a peer amongst the likes of Fred Neil and Bob Dylan, but she never reached the success of her friends. Her Billie Holiday-like alto had a rural twang and an otherwordly oddness to it that didn't translate to the general public, and as a result, she was mostly forgotten. She died homeless on the streets of New York in 1993.
Devendra Banhart cites Dalton as his all-time favorite voice, and it's in part due to his trumpeting of her that we get a chance to hear In My Own Time. Banhart contributes to the liner notes, along with Nick Cave and Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group guitarist.) Her interpretation of the traditional songs "Katie Cruel" and "Same Old Man" (she plays banjo for both) is hauntingly beautiful. In them you can clearly hear how many of the Freak or Psych-folk artists today owe her props. Even a straight-up version of "How Sweet It Is" becomes more then that by Dalton's incredible pacing, as she slips and slides out of the rhythm we expect to hear.
Jackie Mitoo was the 'Keyboard King' of Jamaica's legendary Studio One and a member of The Skatalites. In 1968 he, along with many other Jamaican musicians, moved to Toronto, taking advantage of a burgeoning West Indies community and a more favorable political climate. So while he had helped pave the way for Ska and Rocksteady back in Kingston, the influence of Northern Soul and R&B mixed into his sound, so by 1971, when he released Wishbone, the sounds of Jamaica were merely an underlying current in his overall sound. The title track had minor chart success in it's day, seemingly mixing the melody of The Beatles' "Carry That Weight" with the backing of "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" to a Ska rhythm. Highlights include "Mother Funk," "La La Girls and Cha-Cha Boys" and "Soul Bird."
