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release "High Times: Singles 1992-2006" - a singles collection which contains 16 huge hits from Jamiroquai's extraordinary career to date, plus two new tracks, 'Runaway' and 'Radio'. Sony/BMG. 2006.
Bjork returns to her iconic, innovative and rhythmic roots with Volta. Featuring her own infamous beats and collaborations with Timbaland, Antony Hegarty, Brian Chippendale and an all-female Icelandic brass section, the end result is an explosion of beats and an amalgamtion of sound and visuals that give Volta a life of its own, like the world hasn't seen from Bjork in years.
Remix projects are often commercially motivated ventures that jettison everything that made a track personal and expressive in favor of thudding, generic dance beats that will get played in clubs and on the radio. But as is usually the case, singer David Sylvian has a different approach. Nine Horses is his project with his brother and drummer, Steve Jansen, and electronica artist Burnt Friedman. They take songs from the 2006 release Snow Borne...
A splendid Seattle-scene overview featuring the likes of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Mudhoney--everyone of note, in fact, save Nirvana Bonus: two songs from Minnesotan Paul Westerberg, his first since folding the Replacements. --Jeff Bateman
Number 2 in the self-released Sonic Youth series featuring 3 new tracks written in their NYC studio. Limited edition LP also available.
Saliva frontman Josey Scott unintentionally elevated his band above countless n metal clones by teaming up with Nickelback's Chad Kroeger to write and record the song "Hero" for the Spider-Man soundtrack. The tang of mainstream success was exactly what the Memphis, Tennessee, group needed to break away from the pack on Back into Your System. This follow-up to its major-label debut, Every Six Seconds, ups the heavy atmospherics and dyspepsia....
Where would the '80s have been without the Pet Shop Boys? Discography makes a compelling case for the notion of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe as pioneers, if not geniuses. Mixing the cold feel of Euro-techno beats with the Boys' quest for something warm between the sheets, "What Have I Done to Deserve This" and "Suburbia" sound almost soulful. Although they seemed to be suffering from a terminal case of boredom, they managed to alchemize their...
Rhino's Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970 4-CD Box Set Celebrates The 40th Anniversary Of "The Summer Of Love" Forty years ago the world turned its ears toward San Francisco as a wave of talented bands gave birth to the American counterculture. On August 27, Rhino remembers that magical confluence of time and place with LOVE IS THE SONG WE SING: SAN FRANCISCO NUGGETS 1965-1970, a 4-CD box set of classics and rarities...
With valuable assistance from producer Rick Rubin, the Peppers find just the right blend of punk, funk, and hip-hop. Even with a running time of 74 minutes, this 1991 breakthrough has continuity and cohesion both within and across the 17 cuts. Riding Flea's surging bass, Anthony Kiedis delivers his explicit lyrics with a rapper's flair, extolling the virtues (and outlining the dangers) of sex and drugs. Plaintive ballads such as "Breaking the...
This whole album is filled with scathing fury, mostly directed at the impossible situation that confronts women when they are asked to be both wild sources of pleasure and unblemished mother figures. Live Through This uses the same recipe of punk and metal wrapped around pop melodies that made Nirvana so captivating, but Hole uses the methodology in a more conventional manner. The metal ingredient tends to dominate, perhaps because it's the...
Before the Breeders and Frank Black, there was this Boston quartet, playing hardcore's rush and terseness against the acoustic grit and the minor-key flourish of Latin pop. Their first full-length album is their starkest, harsh and trebly, with the drums right in your face, and songs edited to eliminate any note that's not absolutely necessary. Singer Black Francis yelping away about destroyed bodies and the river Euphrates, alternately acting...
Liquid Mind VI: Spirit, the sixth in Liquid Mind's tranquil series of deep relaxation music, is ideal for Yoga, massage, meditation, anxiety management, and all healing activities. Like the other Liquid Mind albums, this gentle album is used by people everywhere to relieve stress, by parents and teachers to help quiet hyperactive children, by insomniacs to assist themselves in going back to sleep in the middle of a difficult night, and by just...
Released on the independent Caroline label in 1990, Frizzle Fry documents the San Francisco Bay area thrash-funk trio at its energetic best. The bare-bones production serves the group's skeletal sound well and makes the most of nearly live performances of gems such as the antiwar "Too Many Puppies," the stoner testimony of "Spegetti Western," and the madcap litany of "Groundhog's Day." Larry LaLonde's guitar is more melodic and concise than the...
Liquid Mind IV: Unity, the fourth in Liquid Mind's elegant electronic series of slow relaxation music albums, takes the listener to a place of deep tranquility. This peaceful album is used by parents to help quiet hyperactive children, to assist themselves in going back to sleep in the middle of a difficult night, to relieve the stress of a busy day at a computer terminal, and for meditation. The absence of regular rhythm in the music allows a...
Originally released in the UK in early `07 to critical acclaim, the new US version has been massively updated with lots of new tracks WFANFC has recorded since. Now formatted as a double CD, the release retains all of the tracks from the UK version and a whole new album's worth of songs. Working For A Nuclear City began as a studio project involving Gary McClure and Phil Kay (keys/production). In 2004, they took to the stage, recruiting Phil's...
After scoring the crossover hit "Virtual Insanity" in 1998 (remember the moving sidewalk video?), the U.K.'s Jamiroquai failed to keep their momentum alive with the somewhat scattered and skittish Synkronized. Thankfully for fans of the retro (if lightweight) pop/soul that is the band's specialty, Jamiroquai are back with their most cohesive effort since 1995's Return of the Space Cowboy. There's still too much blathering on about the cosmos...
With their interstellar (really!) lyrics and angular song structures, Modest Mouse tend to defy their self-deprecating band name. In truth, the trio's got some lofty ambitions, and The Moon and Antarctica indulges their grand dreams with pristine production and a vivid sonic backdrop. It also dives deeply into their geographical obsessions--always with the same subjective twists that made The Lonesome Crowded West and This Is a Long Drive for...
Following on the Back of the Release of "Ice Cream" (Live Favorite and Intel Advert Soundtrack), New Young Pony Club Release their Debut Album, Fantastic Playroom, which Promises to Be One of the Most Exciting Records of 2007. The Demand for New Young Pony Club is Fever Pitch and the Three Girls and Two Boys, (Including the Nme Cool List Lead Singer and Provocateur, Tahita) Are Setting the World Alight with their Brand of Disco-embellished Pop,...
Since not liking the Scissor Sisters is tantamount to not liking fun, let's just assume that everyone already adores this band and go on from there, OK? The Sisters' hotly anticipated second full-length feel like a streamlined continuation of their debut. It's hard to imagine no one had ever called an album Ta Dah! before, but then these sexy troubadours have no trouble subtly reworking the past to make it almost-new and always joyous. They may...
JJ Grey & MOFRO's Alligator debut, Country Ghetto features 12 original JJ Grey compositions that come right out of the Southern musical and literary tradition. Grey's ear for detail inhabits his songs, whether it is a story passed down to him from his grandmother or the tribulations of a childhood friend. His voice delivers them with an unflinching strength that makes the personal universal and paints a vivid portrait of an exact time or...
So much has been said about disco-punk's King Midas, New York musician/producer James Murphy, that it's kind of hard to believe that we've had to wait until 2005 for the debut album from his dancefloor project, LCD Soundsystem. LCD's classic triumvirate of early singles--"Losing My Edge," "Give It Up," and "Yeah"--joined the dots between punk-rock, disco, and funk in a way that hadn't been seen since the New York downtown scene of the early...
Hitch up your I-Pods, egg-headed hipsters of the future: They Might Be Giants, the out-there band that files its sound under the banner of "Can't We All Just Get Along" is speaking your language. What they're saying is No!, but in a way that's weirdly welcoming, especially to anybody who's over 3 and has a hard drive. No!'s computer enhancements (animation, games, and a sing-along scroll bar) don't assign the strictly audio experience to the...
Kurt Cobain's former bandmates Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl clearly had an agenda in compiling From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah, the second of what will no doubt be a long line of posthumous Nirvana albums. Because of its somber, intense nature, the first post-Cobain release, MTV Unplugged in New York, was largely perceived as music for a wake--an impression reinforced by MTV's constant airings of the special in the days following Cobain's...
The middle album of the trilogy that includes Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild Years, Rain Dogs is Waits's best overall effort. The songs are first-rate, and there are a lot of them--19 in all, ranging from grim nightlife memoirs ("9th and Hennepin," "Singapore") to portraits of small-time hustlers ("Gun Street Girl," "Union Square") to bursts of street-corner philosophy ("Blind Love," "Time"). The album also contains the original version of...
Another Day on Earth is an ambient song cycle that is full of yearning and a mood that Brian Eno has called "brave and resigned." Even in song, Eno is a master of ambience, creating detailed soundworlds and lyrics that don't so much make sense as create a feeling. It's taken him 15 years to create a new vocal album, and the songs span that time, with the welcome reprise of "Under," a devastatingly beautiful hymn of loss and redemption that dates...
On XO, Elliott Smith leaves the indie doldrums behind and takes wing to new, lush surroundings. By adding full instrumentation to his acoustic reveries, Smith has ascended to a new level of songwriting that shores up his gentle voice and country-tinged guitar playing with extra layers of vocal arrangements and charming piano vamps. Strains of classic rock filter into the Beatlesque "Baby Britain" and the Beach Boys-inspired "I Didn't...
If one needed further proof of the contemporary revival/reassessment of the ambitiously overwrought sensibilities once so reviled in '70s rock, this aggressively mindbending second album by the Mars Volta offers it up in spades. Band mainstays Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala insist that labels like "prog" don't interest them, and that this is emphatically not a "sequel" to 2003's De-Loused in the Comatorium. What it is was...
Third Hellcat release for Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros, recorded just weeks prior to the beloved rock legend's death on December 22, 2002. Digipak. 2003.
The first new album from Depeche Mode in four years, its first since 2001's gold and Top 10 Exciter, Playing The Angel is quintessential Depeche Mode-hi-tech electronic pop with enormous hooks and yet faster paced, more urgent than recent albums. The band has sold upward of 50 million records worldwide during its 25 years, but Playing The Angel sounds as fresh and exciting as any in Depeche Mode's glorious history.
The fifth Amon Dl II studio album, Wolf City, saw the light of day in September of 1972. While its predecessor, Carnival In Babylon, had, according to Karrer, still been produced "with revolvers drawn", the recordings of Wolf City went off comparably peacefully. The same applied to the musical direction of the album, which sounded more song-oriented, not as multi-layered and more geared to Renate Knaup's unusual vocal style. Even the...
For all his tattoos and bulked-up frat-boy persona, singer Bradley Nowell had real soul, which made his fatal heroin overdose even more tragic. There's more to this Long Beach, California, trio's debut, released shortly after Nowell's death in 1996, than white suburban punks imitating Jamaican ska music. The band comes up with great songs, notably the catchy MTV hit "What I Got"; spooky dub-reggae undertones, produced by the Butthole Surfers'...
Formed in NYC in the mid-'70s by David Byrne, Chris Franz, Tina Weymouth, and ex-Modern Lover Jerry Harrison, the Talking Heads evolved out of their now-legendary humble beginnings at CBGB's to become one of the most adventurous and influential bands ever. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, the Heads' visionary, polyrhythmic sound daringly combined funk and punk, African beats, avant-garde minimalism, and pure pop. From their...
THE SERMON ON EXPOSITION BOULEVARD, the new album by Rickie Lee Jones and her first for New West Records, is a beauty--soul-satisfying and sonically unique. RICKIE LEE sounds completely tapped in, alive and vital, heading down some mighty interesting roads and discovering new magical essences. Lots of creative sparks here--plenty of them. She sounds like she's going through a transformation throughout the album in a way that's...
Digitally Remastered, Triple Disc, 65 Track Extravaganza of the Universally Acknowledged First Psychedelic Band the World that Actually Hails from Texas, Not San Francisco. Roky Erickson and Company were Noted for the Inclusion of the 'magic Jug' that Pervaded Many of their Manic Tracks. This Collection Includes Many Previously Unreleased Takes and Live Tracks.
During their six years together, The Pixies released five albums to fan, peer, and critical acclaim. This new 23-track best of CD runs almost chronologically and expands on the previous comp, "Death To The Pixies" with a couple B-sides, the live favorite "Into The White", and a cover of Neil Young's "Winterlong". Packaging includes a deluxe full-color 16-page booklet. This is being simultaneously released with the DVD companion, simply titled,...
Ultramega OK is the debut album by the American grunge band Soundgarden. It was released on October 31, 1988 through SST Records. Following the release of the EPs Screaming Life, released in 1987, and Fopp, released in 1988, for the Sub Pop record label, the band signed with the independent record label SST and went to work on its first full-length studio album. The resulting album contained elements of psychedelic rock, classic rock, and...
While Live may be a stopgap measure to bide time for a troubled band that hasn't released an album of new material since 1995, it's also a cool and comprehensive live portrait of a sonically superb band. The 14 tracks, recorded at various venues between 1990 and 1996 and featuring both bassists--ex-member Mike Starr and replacement Mike Inez--show a vitality and looseness not evident on the band's serious studio albums. AIC's spirit is most...
It seems impossible to avoid the fusion and clash of cultures in world music these days. Connectivity means it's all within your (everyone else's) reach. Here on their second album, Nu Med, Balkan Beat Box continue to play at the nexus of Eastern European, klezmer, Arabic, hip-hop, rock and electronic music. Headed by Israelis Tamir Muskat (drums, programming) and Ori Kaplan (saxophone), the band's sound is far from forced, easily summing up the...
The abnormal has become the norm for Tom Waits, so, once again, Bone Machine is laden with odd timbres, archaic acoustics, and raw vocals. This time, however, Waits has built his songs around a Harry Partch-inspired fascination with primitive percussion. With a crew of Northern California musicians along to add spare adornments, Waits fashions pretty, sentimental tunes ("A Little Rain," Whistle Down the Wind") and hellish stampedes of clanging...
A member of the band Heatmiser, Elliot Smith recorded home demos on any equipment he could get his hands on. His first "solo" album is a cheap four-track home recording that hints at the melodic possibilities Smith would explore in greater detail on subsequent releases. The title track is remarkable but with four songs referred to in sequential order as "No Name #1," "No Name #2," etc. ... the inspiration isn't always fully firing. Blessed with...
Jesu returns with nearly an hour of weighty, otherworldly heaviness that defies the default designation of metal. The opening titular cut has as much in common with early Pink Floyd as it does with band member Justin Broadrick's other outfits, Napalm Death and Godflesh. That said, there's plenty here to enrage the savage beast, such as the dark and detuned opening of "Old Year," the icy epic "Mother Earth" and the recording's centerpiece, the...
Roky (pronounce rock-eeh) Erickson was founding member and lead singer of psychedelic band, Texas' infamous Thirteenth Floor Elevators. Erickson explored the far reaches of musical and personal extremes. Young musicians like Jerry Garcia, Grace Slick, and Janis Joplin jammed with the influential group. Following a nightmarish '70s mental-hospital stint that had a devastating long-term effect on his mental health, Erickson's subsequent solo...
The second album from Montreal's Arcade Fire exceeds all expectations. With string and orchestral arrangements by two of the band members, "Neon Bible" is full of both half-assed punk rock mistakes and meticulously orchestrated woodwinds. Processed strings and mandolin. Quiet rumbles and loud rumbles. But mostly just eleven songs that the band thinks are really good. The deluxe CD version is packaged in a hinged box with two 32-page flip...
When they first hit the underground scene with this debut album, the Pixies were like an exotic drink that hid its sweetness behind a ferocious bite. The album's production is like a crude explosion: every strum and clang comes down with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. English and Spanish lyrics collide as singer Black Francis (later Frank Black) shouts in a hoarse monotone and Mrs. John Murphy (later Kim Deal of the Breeders) backs him up with...
Most posthumous albums are shrouded in a sense of morbid nostalgia and grim curiosity. In Sublime's case, there was also some cruel irony to contend with: the California nuevo-punk outfit's promising self-titled major-label debut and commercial breakout was released barely a month after frontman Brad Nowell's death from a heroin overdose--and their de facto demise. But such was the Long Beach band's longtime following that raiding the vaults,...
The fourteen songs on this debut are as varied as Luis Dubuc's myriad influences. But his seemingly disparate influences are re-contextualized into one cohesive collection.
On De-loused in the Comatorium, the Mars Volta approach rock & roll like it's an ascetic discipline, a calling that comes with lyric sheets as dense and impenetrable as the Kabbalah and a ritual of worship that's dervish-like in its intensity. Formed by vocalist Cedric Bixler and guitarist Omar Rodriguez after the split of their former band--Texan hardcore legends At the Drive-In, who splintered acrimoniously in 2001--the Volta are an...
Hard Candy is, most certainly, just another Counting Crows album. But it's difficult to imagine that there's ever going to be too many. For a band that formed during the grunge-dominated early 1990s, Counting Crows did something remarkably brave--though they helped themselves to the same legacy of 1970s and '80s FM radio rock as the Seattle groups, they chose not to subvert it with any punk influences. Counting Crows were determined to play...
Alice in Chains vocalist Layne Staley teams with Seattle pals Mike McCready (Pearl Jam) and Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees) in the tradition of other part-time grunge aggregations like Brad and Hater. These 10 numbers--mostly somber, acoustic-hued ballads like the single "River of Deceit"--are a therapeutic soul-cleansing for the troubled Staley. Core fans of any of the aforementioned bands will rank this with the solo work of Screaming Tree...
Death From Above 1979 made a big impact with their 2004 release You're A Woman, I'm A Machine, touring with Queens of the Stone Age and conjuring an impressive amount of what music journalists call "buzz." The ride was short-lived-they flamed out and disbanded in 2006-but the gaudy intensity that got everyone so excited lives on with MSTRKRFT, the alter ego of DEA's Jesse F. Keeler. Like an even dafter Daft Punk, The Looks reinterprets the hotel...
Detroit's Electric Six splice punk, new wave, disco, and arena rock into a total entertainment solution for the new breed of rock n' roller. 'This single is...pure driving disco-rock, complete with a new wave saxophone solo and ridiculous lyrics. Easily one of the best rock songs of the past year' - NY Times. 'Hold on, have the White Stripes gone Studio 54?' XL Records. 2003.
Sonically relentless and visually groundbreaking only begin to describe the Tool experience. Formed in Los Angeles, CA in 1990, Tool has cemented themselves in today's hard music community with uncompromising attitude and vision. With just one EP and three album releases over a 15-year span, Tool has created a loyal and even rabid fan base, selling over 10 million albums and half a million videos in the U.S. alone.
Electric Six returns with their fourth album; another one filled with songs mostly about nothing, but damn, if it isn't enjoyable. Songs cover everything from their preferred cleaning solution, "Formula 409" to the tribulations of being a "Graphic Designer" to a throwback to their debut album "Fire" with "Gay Bar Part Two". Unclassifiable, this group blends sounds and influences from glam, funk, rock, disco, punk, new wave, and metal.
The second volume of Prince's collection of singles (and a couple of outtakes) has sex on the brain, and a few other places. Apparently aimed at, shall we say, the harder-core fan of the Artist, this disc still ends its parade of R-rated sallies ("Dirty Mind," "Sexy M.F.," "Head") with a cleansing "Purple Rain." And just to blur things even more, among its Top 10 hits are candidly horny moments like "Kiss" and "Little Red Corvette"--songs that...
Jason Kay melds his longtime '70s fixations with '80s style synths on Dynamite, Jamiroquai's first record since 2001's A Funk Odyssey. It's been a long time since the acid jazz/funk hit "Virtual Insanity" (1996's Traveling Without Moving, to be exact), and even though the band never became the huge hit machine they seemed destined to become, they've continued to put out solid work. Odyssey and 1999's Synkronized showed off Kay's dexterity with...
Although this band is largely responsible for defining the circa 1990 rave culture, their music is far removed from the bass-heavy electronica usually associated with dance clubs. Ten songs on this album are characterized by lazy tempos, groovy bass hooks, and artfully simple percussion tracks which interact perfectly to form smooth, danceable beats. The rhythmic foundation is further accented by tasteful guitar licks and restrained keyboard...
Tokyo's Mono is a peculiar group. While most bands offer up their sincerest and most genuine recordings in their infancy and spend the rest of their careers trying desperately to rediscover their youthful energy, Mono's trajectory has been quite the opposite. This flourish of hopeful creativity was captured by Steve Albini in the form of the eight pieces that make up their third album Walking Cloud And Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered And The Sun...
The debut of thundering supergroup Audioslave--featuring members of Rage Against the Machine post-Zack de la Rocha with ex-Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell--is as much curio as fascinating blend of visions. Cornell might be outnumbered, but his unmistakable holler and nihilistic imagery ensure that Audioslave, the album, recalls early Soundgarden. That's especially true since de la Rocha took Rage's signature rap and politicking with him. Still,...
An enchanting and layered world of musical meditations. David Eugene Edwards' music is brooding and dark, yet somehow maintains a tight grip on hope. Dreamy instrumentals, jarring anthems, haunting melodies, hypnotic percussion. Whether the biblical references inspire heartfelt devotion or confused indifference, it's the power of the words and the passionate authority with which they're sung that bring Edwards' songs to another level.
With all the media hype that dogged the Strokes before the release of their debut album, it's rather apt that they chose the title Is This It. On the strength of just five songs released on two singles, the Strokes were being hailed as everything from the saviors of rock & roll to the Savior himself. Surely, few bands could live up to the impossibly high standards set for this young five-piece, but the band needn't have worried: Is This It is...
With its heavy-duty distortion, weighty rhythms, and cynical lyrics, Tool is a heavy metal band for the '90s. Rather like Metallica circa ...And Justice for All, the sound is focused heavily on texture, with vocals and guitars layered one atop the other, and heart-pounding drums underlying everything. There's not a whole lot of variety on Tool's second full-length album--most of the songs start off fairly low-key, kicking into high gear for the...
A hit single can be a bit of a mixed blessing for new bands, especially if said song gets you firmly lumped into the "novelty band" category. Such was the case with Weezer, whose runaway hit "Buddy Holly" touched a global nerve upon its release, then got on everyone's nerves after months of radio saturation. However, it did ensure that they sold millions of copies of their self-titled debut. Which is why it's so strange that their second album,...
The soundtrack to the Jonathan Demme documentary, Stop Making Sense captures the Talking Heads live in 1984 on what would turn out to be their last major tour. This collection, and the film, is a true gift to the band's fans, a testament to the Heads' extraordinary talent, both in the studio and especially onstage. Frontman David Byrne infuses each song with a jolt of energy and drama that could only have come from a late-'70s art-school...
Long Beach garage kings Sublime rode the cresting wave of late-'80s/early-'90s Cali punk to a well-received 1996 major-label debut whose success was overshadowed by tragedy: frontman Brad Nowell died of a heroin overdose just a month before its release. This 1994 album was their freshman indie outing and the record that largely secured their ticket to the majors. Instead of building on the energetic, if formulaic, punk-reggae fusion of their...
Shellac is back for another aural attack with 1000 Hurts, a more accessible album than previous fare such as At Action Park. Frontman Steve Albini has never sounded looser or more sarcastic than he does on the one-two opening punch of "Prayer to God" and "Squirrel Song"; the former finds the screechy one singing (!) wails of resignation over a punchy backing, while the latter has him sneering "Don't be surprised if I bust out crying" before...
Blood Money uses the same template and players as Alice (released at the same time) and first saw life as an opera production by Robert Wilson. It's Waits's treatment of Georg Buchner's 1837 socio-political play, Woyzek which premiered in 2000 in Copenhagen. It's a dark morality play performed in a style where a barker from a medicine show is mysteriously transported to the Weimar Republic via Tin Pan Alley. Disturbing and delirious when...
Broken Social Scene materialized in 1999 when K.C. Accidental's Kevin Drew & Brendan Canning, formerly of By Divine Right, bonded their friendship into a band. During the next few years, Broken Social Scene created an atmospheric rock sound. Feel Good Lost marked their debut album in 2001 & introduced a revolving cast of Canadian indie musicians. Drew's fellow mate from Do Make Say Think was added to the band, as well as Evan Cranley...
On "Snakehouse", The Cliks have created something mysterious yet transparent; specific yet universal; timeless yet intoxicatingly new. They're a band of such primal power and unguarded emotion that they'll take your breath away. This is music that seems to emanate from a parallel universe, one where fundamental distinctions are blurred, living passionately is the highest level of existence, and rock and roll is the ultimate form of...
Formed in the mid-70's by art school chums David Byrne, Chris Franz, and Tina Weymouth-and ex-Modern lover Jerry Harrison-Talking Heads rose out of the CBGB punk crucible and proved themselves one of the most artistically adventurous and influential bands ever. Their visionary, polyrhyhmic sound fused elements including rock, funk, and punk with diverse world beats, avant-garde minimalism, and pure pop genius. Inducted into the Rock and Roll...
Of course the Stooges were stupid, that was the whole point. Three chords were okay, two were even better, one or none (the cacophonous "L.A. Blues") was best of all. Drunk on their own testosterone, Iggy Pop and Co. kept things simple, loud, and brutal--and he's been coasting on the band's rep ever since. Slow and thuddy as it sounds now, almost nobody had ever made rock as primal as this second album. Iggy howled like a psycho, the band...
SELECT songs from Little Steven's Underground Garage radio show. These are the BEST from each segment's "Coolest Song in the World This Week." Vol. 2 includes Joey Ramone, The Donnas, The Raveonettes, The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, and the Buzzcocks, among others.
It is with primitive urgency and lustrous clarity rising like flickering embers from a fire that Jonathan Elias's ambitious Prayer Cycle is given voice. Woven together like knotty wool, silk, and fine strands of silvery water, the disparate yet complementary voices of the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Alanis Morissette, Yungchen Lhamo, Ofra Haza, the American Boychoir, Salif Keita, and others intertwine in multiple languages with the superb...
The "THANK YOU" CD features 13 of STP's greatest songs, spanning more than a decade of hits. The compilation also includes a pair of special bonus tracks: the brand-new, previously unreleased "All In The Suit That You Wear" - which is headed to rock radio - along with an acoustic version of "Plush," recorded live on MTV's Headbanger's Ball back in 1992. This version of "THANK YOU" contains a bonus DVD. The 3-hour, 32-song DVD features a...
Oft-sampled electronic pop pioneers the Silver Apples released two exceptionally influential, off-kilter records in 1968 and '69, then apparently vanished. The group was formed in New York City in the psychedelic heyday of 1967 by drummer Danny Taylor and protosynth player Simeon, who quaintly named his hand-built instrument the Simeon. Taylor was a powerhouse of polyphony and his looping, loping playing is the engine that drives the Apples'...
Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe's experiment in brainy dance pop has been going on for two decades now, and since it's never really been broke they never bother fixing it. True, 2002's Release was more of its time than anything they'd released since Please, but after 2005's Back To Mine diversion, they're indulging in pure '80s nostalgia on Fundamental. The first single, "I'm With Stupid" shamelessly works a pure synth-cheese vibe, and it doesn't...
Issaquah, WA, indie rock trio MODEST MOUSE was formed in 1993 by vocalist/guitarist Isaac Brock, bassist Eric Judy, and drummer Jeremiah Green. This album was released in 1997 and was the band's first for US label MATADOR. And talk about original, the band has something for just about everyone! They can do quiet, brooding acoustics, dark and pounding thrashers, funky jump-around emo, just about anything. The opening track, "Teeth Like God's...
That the most famous garage-rock record of all time, the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie," is buried on the last CD of this four-disc box is very much in keeping with the spirit of the (often) one-hit wonders that people Nuggets. Here, "Louie Louie" is just another great song. An elaboration on the 1972 double LP, which is included in its original sequence, this set piles on dozens more great moments of inspiration, guts, chutzpah, and sometimes sheer...
OHM+ : the early gurus of electronic music Special Edition 3CD + DVD Leaps in technology: oscillators, generators, vacuum tubes, amplifiers, transistors, magnetic tape, integrated circuits, and the microchip— inspired new instruments: the telharmonium, theremin, ondes martenot, electronic sackbut, clavivox, electronium, moog synthesizer, and computers— and artists everywhere hungry for new modes of expression. This collection is a...
Originally released in April 1995, fresh off the success of "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain", the band recorded a deliberately chaotic and eclectic album that sounded nothing like its predecessor. With influences from the Groundhogs to the Frogs, Captain Beefheart to the more obscure mid-'80s central California hardcore bands, "Wowee Zowee" confused critics and alienated fans. Yet it became a fan favorite over time. The songs have a darkness...
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