NPR: Exclusive First Listen

[noddin0ff]

Lots of you are waiting for this one. Now up for full streaming for those that didn't receive the sneak peak from fellow ARer. I like much better than previous efforts.

The Decemberists - The King is Dead

[Mr MidFi]

I'm liking what I'm hearing, so far. And I'm not even a big Decemberists guy!

[bobsticks]

I always forget what a great opportunity for exposure NPR provides...kinda a departure for the Decemberists but well worth the listen.

I'm currently enjoying this ...interesting backstory too.

Thanks noddy

[noddin0ff]

I always forget what a great opportunity for exposure NPR provides...kinda a departure for the Decemberists but well worth the listen.

I'm currently enjoying this ...interesting backstory too.

Thanks noddy

Ooooh! I'm a fan of Mingus Big Band. They do great work keeping the spirit alive. Thanks back at ya.

[noddin0ff]

I've also been enjoying the coming release from Wire - [I]Red Barked Tree[/I]. I never really listened to them in the past, so can't comment on how this might compare. Sounds contemporary to me, while not adopting some of the current sounds I don't like (whining, overlayered chords, e.g.). Enjoying the whole flow of the album.

[jonnyhambone]

this is currently streaming on NPR...comes out tomorrow officially so I think they stop streaming then
Really gorgeous harmonies and subtle instruments...all haunting... Americana folksy on the surface but a bit more dirge-y and deep than some others. I likes.
The Low Anthem - Smart Flesh

[atomicAdam]

this is currently streaming on NPR...comes out tomorrow officially so I think they stop streaming then
Really gorgeous harmonies and subtle instruments...all haunting... Americana folksy on the surface but a bit more dirge-y and deep than some others. I likes.
The Low Anthem - Smart Flesh

Yes - good stuff. A bit too similar and then BAM! AWESOME SONG - then back to good stuff. it's like that one Cranberries album with Zombie on it. A bunch of folk and then BAM AWESOME and back to folk. I didn't like it when i was 15 and spent $16 ($4 would have got me high) one a bunch of folk. Double my age and now I like the album fine enough.

[noddin0ff]

Haven't been hitting the NPR much lately and when I have I've been somewhat disappointed. Today, however, I'm giving this pending album by Tinariwen two thumbs up. Anyone familiar with their other album? Click pic for link to NPR.

Tinariwen - Tassili


From NPR page:
Let's get one thing straight: Tinariwen is just about the best guitar-based rock band of the 21st century. There's a chance you're one of the lucky explorers who has already discovered the magic of the group's music — but if not, stop reading, hit play, and soak in the first song before you read any further.

Jimi Hendrix would have loved Tinariwen, and I'm certain Tinariwen loves Hendrix, as well as Television — not the tube, but the New York art-punk band from the '70s. In my mind, there's a direct link: Tinariwen is trance music with attitude. You might not be able to understand what the band is singing about, but it feels familiar, doesn't it?

Tinariwen's members are Tuareg people, nomads from Saharan North Africa. Guitarist and founding member Ibrahim Ag Alhabib witnessed atrocities in his youth, including the execution of his father. He tells the story of watching an American Western as a child — the film featured a cowboy playing guitar — and then using a tin can, a stick, and some wire to fashion a guitar of his own. Is there a more rock 'n roll story than that?

For those afraid to dip their toes, here are a few incentives: Nels Cline, the brilliant guitarist from Wilco, plays on Tassili, as do Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone from TV on the Radio. Some brilliant brass makes its way onto this record, too, courtesy of New Orleans' legendary Dirty Dozen Brass Band. I've seen Tinariwen play many times in many settings, from small theaters to big festivals, but the group shines brightest in a rock club. The rhythm will get you dancing, the singing will resonate in your chest, and the guitars will carry you away. Listen loud!

[hifitommy]

i have been listening a lot to kcrw eclectic24, all music, new music, few repeats in any listening period.

KCRW 89.9 FM | Eclectic24 Track List | Los Angeles, CA

very stimulating and now my favorite non-jazz station. its also available as an adroid phone app for free. soon i will have a car with an input to its radio so i can listen while driving. i suppose i could use my etymotics but i am not an ipod kind of user.

black dub and fink are some of what i hear there. theres always something new. and old too. miles davis, lou reed, the skyliners, etc. truly eclectic.

[jonnyhambone]

Really good couple albums up on First Listen currently! The St. Vincent I wrote off at first - thinking, if I want to hear Kate Bush-esque songs, I'll always be happy to put on Kate Bush...this is a pretty sweet album though after a few spins. I also am really loving the Meg Baird, her work with Espers is really under-rated I think and this is pretty straight-up folk-y but quite lovely stuff. The side-bar Laura Marling song is awesome too. Go Ladies! Need to try that Opeth that's up too but haven't gone there yet.
ps. on the theme of how streaming helps/hurts artists...I streamed the Tinariwan from First Listen and loved it - vinyl copy is on the way!

NPR's First Listen

[noddin0ff]

From NPR
"September 19, 2011
Wilco's more than 15-year evolution as a band has featured a stunning series of sonic ebbs and flows. The group's revolving cast of members started off recording country-flavored pop songs with fairly standard chord progressions, rhythms and instrumentation. But each album that followed Wilco's 1995 debut, A.M., grew increasingly experimental, culminating in 2002's brilliant but polarizing Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The record earned Wilco vast critical praise and attracted a massive new audience, but it also alienated many fans of the band's earlier, more traditional songwriting. Then, over the course of three more albums, Wilco retreated from its arty studio tricks and returned to safer, more conventional music-making — which led to more head-scratching. What kind of band is this? What does it want to be?

Listening to Wilco's latest album — The Whole Love, out Sept. 27 — it's clear that the group's members are just a bunch of talented, inspired and entirely genuine music lovers who stay married to few, if any, rules. They both embrace and dismantle the elements of songcraft as an endlessly malleable art form, and do it so gracefully that they've made Wilco perhaps America's best band, even if the results are sometimes mixed.

On one hand, The Whole Love is Wilco's most adventurous record in a decade. The band is back to playing with polyrhythms and structure, often abandoning typical verse-and-chorus lines for less linear and more surprising songs. But they also include cuts that would fit comfortably on some of the band's earliest records. The Whole Love's seven-minute opener, "Art of Almost," is an epic, sprawling, magnificently disjointed song full of strange textures and unexpected twists. But it's followed by "I Might," a candy-flavored pop song like something from 1999's Summerteeth. In "Dawned on Me," dark, thrashing guitars clash with delicate vocals and a lovely, hopeful melody. "Born Alone" is one of the catchiest songs Wilco has ever produced, while "Capitol City" has an almost goofy shuffle like something from an early Randy Newman record — not that there's anything wrong with that. The Whole Love closes with "One Sunday Morning," a moving 12-minute meditation on growing old and battling inner demons, the strained relationship between a father and son, and the weight of bitter regret.

Wilco's gifted frontman and primary songwriter, Jeff Tweedy has been making music for nearly 30 years, going all the way back to his earliest days in the early-'80s rockabilly band The Plebes, and he's never pretended to owe anyone anything. He takes his songs where his heart and imagination lead him, and regardless of which camp you fall in — pre- or post-Yankee Hotel Foxtrot — the results are always rewarding."

[noddin0ff]

Whenever I say 'Bjork' I think of the Swedish Chef.

I've had this one on pre-order for a while. Now it's up for pre-listen here. I like it so far. Accessible as far as Bjork goes and a lot to ingest, as per usual. NPR has lots to say:

"October 4, 2011
Björk is not one for half measures: When she embarks on a new project, it's guaranteed to be a fully conceived artistic statement. For more than two decades, the Icelandic pop musician has created album after album of genre-bending, globe-spanning, forward-thinking songs with oversized intentions and flair that's distinctly her own. Björk has been similarly imaginative in other media, too; in her wild, colorful costuming and bizarre hairstyles, and in her mind-blowing music videos. There's no one else out there quite like her.

So it's fitting that Biophilia, Björk's latest and most ambitious project yet, began as a collection of songs written around themes of nature, science and humanity's relationships to both. For most artists, that'd be a lofty enough concept on its own. But Björk heavily researched astrophysics, string theory, neurology, biology and other areas where science and music meet. Her big ideas didn't stop there.

She also wanted people to explore inside the music and ultimately collaborate with it. For Biophilia, she'd originally envisioned a musical house — like a museum, she's said — wherein people could roam from room to room, with each interactive space designated to a different song. Later, she envisioned an IMAX film experience with visionary filmmaker Michel Gondry. When both of those ideas fell through, Björk commissioned an iPad app with which users can manipulate her music with various games, remix it and further understand the scientific and musical principles behind each song. It's a lot like her idea for the musical house, but in a digital environment. It's also just the kind of bonkers vision that Björk would be drawn to, and if it all works, it ought to be ingenious and tons of fun.

That said, for all the talk of the app, the biggest danger is that the songs themselves might end up being secondary to the grander statement. But, isolated from the iPad, Biophilia's songs are astounding. With a project like this, you might expect the music to be buried in layers of instruments — as on Björk's last album, the hyper-charged Volta. Instead, Biophilia benefits from being pared-down and minimalist. Each work focuses on a specific set of non-traditional instruments (no guitar, no piano) that serve as the backbone for each track. Amid rumbling synths, regal horn passages and crisply plucked string sequences, Björk uses specially made instruments like a "gravity harp," a Tesla coil, a group of pendulums and the clanging "gameleste," a hybrid of gamelan and celesta, played remotely with an iPad.

She also employed the iPad's touchscreen interface to create many of the glitchy digital sounds and skittering, chopped-up beats. Björk has explained that it helped her rethink her own natural tendencies. "All my songs end up being 83 BPM," she recently told Wired magazine, "which is the speed I walk. I felt stuck. I was writing most of my songs in 4/4: verse, chorus, verse, chorus." As on another previous album, Medulla — on which each instrument was crafted from a voice or vocal sample — Björk's self-imposed constraint has actually opened her up to a more spacious songwriting style. These songs have room to breathe, employing space and silence as much as melody and harmony. The sparse instrumentation and arrangements become gorgeously intricate meditations on which to build.

Yet at the heart of Biophilia is, of course, Björk's iconic, haunting voice. Vocal melodies unfurl more like transcendent devotionals than typical verses, and become even more stirring when accompanied by a chorus of voices that could fill a cathedral. Still, even as Björk chants and sings of nature, biology and the origins of the universe, songs like "Cosmogony" and "Moon" remain intimate and affecting by using scientific ideas as metaphors for universal sentiments. "Like a virus, patient hunter, I'm waiting for you, I'm starving for you," she sings in "Virus."

There's much to unpack with Biophilia; it takes many listens to grasp what's happening. For many, Björk's music can be strange and challenging, and it might not connect with everyone. But it's hard to deny her admirable and inspiring devotion to pushing the envelope musically. Björk is such an odd, elusive iconoclast that you truly never know what she'll try next. As always, that's part of the joy here."

[Davey]

I've had this one on pre-order for a while. ..NPR has lots to say: "...you truly never know what she'll try next. As always, that's part of the joy here."

Yea, that and the new Joe Henry, also a recent NPR first listen, are gonna get some listens in the next few days, and hopefully for the next few weeks and months too. Just listened to part of Blood from Stars (2009) this morning in anticipation. Really a nice record.


Joe Henry's new album, Reverie, comes out Oct. 11.

October 2, 2011
Joe Henry has never been easy to pin down. In a career spanning more than two decades, he's had his hands in a bit of everything, from gospel, folk and country to experimental rock and pop, soul and funk. But throughout his years of sonic shapeshifting, Henry has maintained a singular voice defined by his love of strange, almost magical spaces. His songs, regardless of the form they take, always seem to drift through shadows and fog.

Joe Henry's latest album, Reverie, is no exception. On the surface, it's a straight-up roots record: a mix of acoustic songs steeped in the spirit of early-20th-century ragtime and blues. They stagger and strut woozily across dusty floors on sultry nights, and there's a creaky wooden circus echoing from the edge of town. But, as with most of Henry's work, things are rarely what they seem.

Much of the mystery in Joe Henry's music is suggested in the production more than any particular line or melody. Henry recorded Reverie in his basement studio and left the windows literally wide open. You can hear the street sounds — a barking dog, birds chirping, lazy traffic — throughout the album. He captured these songs as loosely as possible, in their rawest form, with no studio trickery. As a result, the music rattles and trembles, and feels as though it could break apart at any moment.

Henry also stokes the mystery with beautifully seductive narratives and themes. Much of Reverie is haunted by the elusive, transformative passing of time. Beauty fades, friends and lovers are lost, the world fills with despair and grows weary under its own weight. In one song, "Room at Arles," Henry recalls his friend Vic Chesnutt, a brilliant but troubled artist who took his own life after years of battling depression.

Joe Henry has spent a lifetime helping other musicians find their voices, producing some of the most memorable albums from Aimee Mann, Aaron Neville, Betty LaVette and many others. But his finest and most arresting work has always been his own. Reverie is Henry's 12th full-length album and possibly his best. If there's a restlessness in his music, it settles, if only for a moment, on this beguiling and beautifully disheveled collection.

[noddin0ff]

Ah...Nothing quite satisfies the way a Tom Waits album does. Album is out today and streaming as well.



Quoting NPR

Everything about Tom Waits is a contradiction of one sort or another: He cuts an unknowable and even otherworldly figure, yet his songwriting can be tear-jerkingly humane. He's untethered to eras or trends, yet his sound and the characters he inhabits are distinctly American. And, for all the ways his image classifies him as a lone wolf, he's one of music's great collaborators, having spent the last three decades working closely with wife and songwriting partner Kathleen Brennan.

Waits, of course, is an expert at feeding the mystery surrounding his deeply weird but strangely accessible music; to interview the man is to be led into a catacomb of misdirection and non sequiturs. But on his 17th album Bad As Me, out Oct. 24, Waits and Brennan continue to craft songs marked by uncommon empathy. Waits' first all-new studio record in seven years, it toggles constantly between heartsick vulnerability and hell-bound defiance: He may attempt to wake the devil in the stomping title track, commiserating with a lover who's "the same kind of bad as me," but a few songs later, he's grimly mourning his status as "the last leaf on the tree" — a survivor, but a lonely one.

For Waits, vulnerability and defiance are two sides of the same coin anyway; just listen to the blisteringly ramshackle "Satisfied," in which satisfaction and death are practically interchangeable. He may exude fatalism in "Pay Me" — a punch-in-the-gut ballad in which he memorably sings, "All roads lead to the end of the world" — but his delivery is a carefully controlled mix of ruefulness and realism. For Waits, ugliness and beauty both find ways to persist against all opposition. But in the end, amid these 13 songs' furious clatter and gutter-level grime, beauty improbably wins out.

[noddin0ff]

I liked the Heartless Bastards last release and will be picking up their new one when it releases. After taking a preview listen, it doesn't have the ragged edges and overall rawness of the previous release. To my ears,however, there's still an abundance of heartfelt energy here. More tension between the melody and the emotion. Slightly more polished release, but still fresher and more immediate than most things I've listened to in a while.

I know I'm prone to misjudging what I'm going to like by the year end. That said. This will make my top 10, I'm sure.



NPR says (Link and listen HERE):
Every single element of Heartless Bastards' sound and story — the moodily bluesy Southern rock, the reputation for tireless touring, the ever-changing lineup of backing players — is a satellite orbiting around Erika Wennerstrom, the diminutive dynamo who sings, plays guitar and writes the band's songs. Her booming, throaty, commanding presence dominates all four of Heartless Bastards' albums, the latest of which, Arrow, comes out Feb. 14.

Wennerstrom has led Heartless Bastards through many phases, as well as a move from Dayton, Ohio, to Austin. But she and her present-day compatriots, who now include an extra guitarist in Mark Nathan, straddle those sounds with ease and assurance on Arrow. While the rawness of the group's early garage rock has been smoothed out and refined on recent records, a current of white-knuckle tension still roils just beneath the surface. It may open as a lazy, knockabout shuffle, but the single "Parted Ways" builds and builds, hanging on Wennerstrom's every confidently delivered word until it blooms into a sprawling guitar solo, retreats to calmer terrain and finally accelerates with abandon.

Awash in the sort of rafter-climbing rock 'n' roll epics that always sound even bolder in a live setting, Arrow takes time to creep down quieter corridors in "The Arrow Killed the Beast" and "Low Low Low." The latter song frames Wennerstrom's voice in delicate steel guitars before giving her space to echo and boom in a beautiful chorus — just one more chance for Arrow to shine a spotlight on a rock star in the making.

And the album art

[noddin0ff]

Oh hey! Andrew Bird's new on is up for streaming on NPR. Click the pic.



NPR says:
Pro tip for Andrew Bird fans hearing Break It Yourself for the first time: Clear away any and all distractions, listen on headphones and let its subtle charms sink in slowly. Early mornings or late nights work best. This isn't a record for chaotic commutes or busy offices — these are songs of quiet contemplation, performed by a classically trained artist who sounds unmistakably confident in his craft, yet more muted than usual.

As whimsical as Bird can be — even here, he's still one to whistle where other musicians might employ guitar solos — Break It Yourself has a brooding quality that's miles from the playfully jittery hot jazz of his Bowl of Fire days. Even the comparatively lilting "Near Death Experience Experience," with a hook straight out of Fastball's 1998 hit "The Way," finds Bird wanting to "dance like cancer survivors, like the prognosis was that you should have died." There's real heavy-heartedness at work here: Bird still turns an impeccable phrase, but his gift for flashy wordplay is toned down considerably.

Cumulatively, when employed as background noise, Break It Yourself (out March 6) can seem uneventful, even sleepy. But listen closely to lustrous, uncommonly delicate ballads like "Sifters" and the eight-minute "Hole in the Ocean Floor," and the washed-out colors start to shine. Coming from an artist who's become a model of sunny consistency over the course of a dozen albums — with a zillion fans who've only grown more intense in recent years — Break It Yourself is a quiet, careful grower. Give it time, though, and it blooms into something beautiful.

[Swish]

Oh hey! Andrew Bird's new on is up for streaming on NPR. Click the pic.



NPR says:
Pro tip for Andrew Bird fans hearing Break It Yourself for the first time: Clear away any and all distractions, listen on headphones and let its subtle charms sink in slowly. Early mornings or late nights work best. This isn't a record for chaotic commutes or busy offices — these are songs of quiet contemplation, performed by a classically trained artist who sounds unmistakably confident in his craft, yet more muted than usual.

As whimsical as Bird can be — even here, he's still one to whistle where other musicians might employ guitar solos — Break It Yourself has a brooding quality that's miles from the playfully jittery hot jazz of his Bowl of Fire days. Even the comparatively lilting "Near Death Experience Experience," with a hook straight out of Fastball's 1998 hit "The Way," finds Bird wanting to "dance like cancer survivors, like the prognosis was that you should have died." There's real heavy-heartedness at work here: Bird still turns an impeccable phrase, but his gift for flashy wordplay is toned down considerably.

Cumulatively, when employed as background noise, Break It Yourself (out March 6) can seem uneventful, even sleepy. But listen closely to lustrous, uncommonly delicate ballads like "Sifters" and the eight-minute "Hole in the Ocean Floor," and the washed-out colors start to shine. Coming from an artist who's become a model of sunny consistency over the course of a dozen albums — with a zillion fans who've only grown more intense in recent years — Break It Yourself is a quiet, careful grower. Give it time, though, and it blooms into something beautiful.

...(thanks Slosh) and really digging it. The title cut is my early favorite; "you're getting too close to your soul you've done the impossible now: took yourself apart made yourself invulnerable no one can break your heart so you break it yourself!"

[jonnyhambone]

couple good ones streaming now...one I'll pick up on vinyl next wk...one, despite the hype, I find a bit boring after 2 or 3 listens.
Mt. Eerie - Clear Moon
I've really liked the direction Phil's been taking this project ('09's Wind Poem) ...slow building burners that stick in your head despite the folk-heavy droning death metal ambiance he's invented. The entrance of female harmonies a few minutes in, is perfect. All their releases are really good sounding too so the vinyl should be a treat.
BeachHouse - Bloom
I'll try once more...I did the same w/ their last one and it just kept boring me. I love the general sound - that 4AD stuff like Cocteau Twins, the lead singer can really hit her Elizabeth Fraser highs but it hasn't grabbed me yet.
psyched to listen to the new St. Vitus (!!) and ExitMusic here too...
NPR - Exclusive First Listen

[noddin0ff]

Giving Monday's new postings a listen. I'm liking this one. Sweet, engaging. Fresh and quirky enough to keep my interest.

Regina Spektor, 'What We Saw From The Cheap Seats'


Spektor's first new studio album in three years, What We Saw From the Cheap Seats (out May 29) finds her scattering in several directions without losing sight of the sweet melodies that make her so accessible. "Don't Leave Me (Ne Me Quitte Pas)" bounces and lilts through an almost comically jaunty arrangement — it's 3 minutes and 40 seconds of pure, sprightly ingratiation — before giving way to the sparklingly gorgeous ballad "Firewood," whose minor-key piano and hopeful realism make it one of her finest songs. Spektor may get silly in "Oh Marcello," or imitate drum blasts in "All the Rowboats," but she's forever on the verge of a devastating insight or a gasp-inducing succession of notes.

[noddin0ff]

I've now listened to the stream of Regina Spektor multiple times. I'm hooked. This is a truly great album and worth checking out. Just thought you'd like to know.

[noddin0ff]

Wow. Another real good listen. - Liars:WIXIW



From NPR {LINK HERE}
"WIXIW, out June 5, may just be the best Radiohead album since Kid A. In all seriousness, when you listen to the new Liars album — as you should many times over the next week — imagine Thom Yorke's falsetto taking the place of Angus Andrews' less distinctive but no less effective voice amid the barrage of intricate electronics. At times, it's almost as if Andrews is rubbing it in Yorke's face, like in "Ill Valley Prodigies" or the title track. These are the sort of songs disappointed Radiohead fans wanted on The King of Limbs.

The similarities shouldn't come as a surprise. Yorke has long been a fan of Liars, as he told NPR Music's Bob Boilen in this Guest DJ session, and the two bands toured together in 2008. Both groups love to experiment within the rock template — so much so that you never know what their next records will sound like. WIXIW (pronounced "wish you") is Liars' "electronic" record, and a darn good one at that. Whereas Radiohead basically mimicked its favorite U.K. bass producers on The King of Limbs, Liars' productions, aided by Mute Records founder Daniel Miller, don't sound of any particular time or place. That's a good thing.

For those who've read this far and still pine for the dance-punk of 2001's They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, just skip to WIXIW's penultimate track, "Brats" — you won't be disappointed."

[noddin0ff]

I don't know if I'm just desperate for more new music or NPR is picking more better albums (that's a compound adjective, 'more better'). Nenah Cherry has a new one...a jazz album. My first thought was, 'Yeah, right...". It's my first stream of the week, I'm halfway through it, and I'm gonna have to take that skepticism back. She's got a thing going. And her band does too. I give it 3+ noddin's overall and maybe 4 for what I'm likely to hear in 2012. Despite being mostly covers, it's remarkably fresh. It consistently defies expectations and staid conventions (I'm no scholar, just riffing...), comes off aggressively, subtly (mostly aggressive)... And maybe most pleasing to me is how well her voice is suited to jazz. Not all the tracks are winners, but enough are pretty good.

Nenah Cherry: The Cherry Thing


Just got the end of the stream. That Stooges cover track is hard to take.

From NPR [link]
"At a glance, the script for The Cherry Thing might have been recycled: A global pop star returns from a long hiatus with an album of covers, backed by a jazz band. But nothing about this record's sound — or its backstory, for that matter — even remotely suggests Rod Stewart, Linda Ronstadt or Paul McCartney singing standards.

Subverting the starring role is the singer and rapper Neneh Cherry, whose hors categorie dance-pop ("Buffalo Stance," etc.) earned her 15 minutes of international fame in the late 1980s and '90s. In the time since she released her last solo LP in 1996, three Norwegian and Swedish free-jazz musicians formed a remarkably versatile band. The Thing — with Mats Gustafsson on saxophones, Ingebrigt Haker Flaten on bass, Paal Nilssen-Love on drums — is as happy trading blows with fire-breathing saxophonists as it is rocking out on a PJ Harvey tune or "Louie Louie."

This collaboration dates back only two years, but its ties run deep. Neneh Cherry, whose mother is Swedish, grew up largely in Sweden and the U.S.; The Thing's members are from Scandinavia and have racked up many American collaborators (Flaten currently lives in Austin, Texas). Neneh Cherry's discography lists work with punk rockers, trip-hop pioneers and African pop icons; The Thing is known for its unmediated punk energy and its recordings with The Cato Salsa Experience, a Swedish rock band. Cherry's stepfather is the American improvising cornetist Don Cherry, and she spent much of her childhood touring with him and his fellow jazz legends; The Thing initially met expressly to play Don Cherry compositions, and named itself after one of his songs.

So it makes sense that they cover electronic punk duo Suicide (the beautiful "Dream Baby Dream"), English vocalist and songwriter Martina Topley-Bird (the driving "Too Tough to Die"), hard-rock band The Stooges ("Dirt"), prolix rapper MF Doom (an interpolation of the lyrics of "Accordion"). There are also fetching originals from Cherry and Gustafsson, as well as an inventive reconfiguration of a Don Cherry theme ("Golden Heart"). It's a wild record, in an expect-the-unexpected sort of way; it's also a homemade record, in that its arrangements feel spontaneous and minimally varnished by studio polish. It's a raw record, in the way that a go-anywhere singer encounters an upright bass, a baritone saxophone and an actual drum set.

Out June 19, The Cherry Thing winds down with "What Reason," a remarkably appropriate choice for the strengths and pre-history of this band. It's an aching, sawing melody; it was also one of the few vocal features penned by free-jazz trailblazer Ornette Coleman, a close associate of Don Cherry. It closes here on a peaceful a cappella strain: "Only when I'm without you," Neneh Cherry sings. Then, a most present silence."

[noddin0ff]

Cat Power's new one went up today. I'm just transiting to track 2 now. So far, not what I was expecting. Certainly a big departure from The Greatest, a fantastic album. My 2 bit breakdown is that her voice sounds more mature and her music younger; a bit of a reverse. Time will tell on this one.



From NPR
"Chan Marshall, the creative force behind Cat Power, has long been indie rock's standard-bearer for melancholy navel gazing. In a career spanning nearly two decades, she's produced a large catalog of mostly moody confessionals, mixing blues, folk and arty punk with a swoon-inducing, transcendent voice. She could sing random figures from her tax returns and convey more heartache and angst than many other artists could match in their deepest moments.

But on Sun, Marshall's first full-length collection of new songs in more than six years, the Georgia native has taken a surprising turn from her long-established themes and sound to produce her most joyful, sonically adventurous album to date. Sun, out Sept. 4, is also the best record she's ever made.

Fans hoping for another rainy-day companion won't find much comfort on the appropriately titled Sun. The delicate guitar and piano lines — and the wispy, introspective poetry of earlier Cat Power recordings — have been obliterated by propulsive synths, drum machines and urgent, densely layered vocals. It's a bold, sometimes epic and thrilling sound Marshall crafted and produced entirely on her own, playing every instrument and singing every part at her Malibu studio. The songs were later mixed by Philippe Zdar.

Marshall didn't arrive at this point in her music easily. After releasing her soul-inspired album The Greatest in 2006, the singer was crippled by debt, went bankrupt and was briefly hospitalized for stress. She eventually began writing again, but abandoned everything she'd done after a friend told her the songs were too sad and familiar. So Marshall took time off to reevaluate her approach to music. After an extended hiatus, she returned to the studio with a new game plan that relied heavily on the electronics and driving dance beats heard on Sun. Marshall calls it her "rebirth."

It can be hard for longtime fans of an artist to embrace changes as dramatic as the ones Marshall makes here. Sun may alienate some listeners who prefer to snuggle under a heavy blanket with Cat Power's sadder, older sound. But the album is also likely to draw in a new batch of fans struck by its power and triumphant beauty. Either way, it's one of 2012's biggest surprises and best records: an irresistible collection from an inspired, fearless and curious artist."

[noddin0ff]

Here's one worth a listen. Its a pleasant eclectic genre-crossing session.



Pretty chill and relaxing, breezy for the most part. Threads of 70s funk, jazz, indie, afro pop... and a bunch of other stuff. First track sounds like Blaxploitation-light, e.g. (as if the Steve Miller Band took on a Tarantino soundtrack--on tranquilizers) The album's got a good rhythm through out , which maintains a crisp focus and keeps the cosmic wanderings up top moving along. There's some strong grooves, but not so strong as you feel you need to put down your cocktail and bounce.

A bit hard to tell what you're in for from the reviews. A couple quotes:

From NPR:
"For such a multifaceted album, Mars feels personal, in part because most of the instrumentation and nearly all of the vocals come from one man. In every track, Gallab plays at least three instruments (in "Caparundi," he's credited with nine), and each instrument bears traces of the sounds that influenced Gallab. In the funky twang of the guitar that opens "Runnin'," the dance-friendly 4/4 kick running under "Jeeper Creeper" and the cosmic flourishes that pepper the jazzy title track, Gallab finds consistency in experimentation, and focus in the freewheeling."

From Pitchfork:
Mars is both refined and easygoing, if not a bit aloof at times. It works in multiple musical registers simultaneously and smartly-- the syncopated rhythms and breezy guitar figures of Sudanese pop, krautrock, early-70s funk, free jazz, Fader-friendly global indie-- while maintaining a clear authorial voice (largely coming from Gallab's playing multiple instruments on each song).

...

The album opens with the squawking funk of "Runnin'", on which his thin falsetto and encouraging words directly channel Blaxploitation-era Curtis Mayfield. "Love Sick" is about as blatant a reappropriation of "Spoon"'s vampiric funk riff as I've ever heard, and "Jeeper Creeper" vamps for five minutes around the core idea of Yeasayer's "2080" (it helps that the band's bassist plays on the song). "Making Time", which rides a new age synth pad that could have been drawn from All Hour Cymbals into the pocket of a deep Afro-funk groove, is the album's most successful synthesis. He plays all instruments on the song, save for a "Dirty Diana"-style guitar solo, courtesy of Twin Shadow's George Lewis, Jr. Yet instead of flaunting it, Gallab buries it in the mix, allowing it to serve as more of a textural element than a spotlit celebrity showcase. This is perhaps the clearest example of Gallabs gifts: using his friends smartly, playing down virtuosity, lest it detract from the overall vibe.

Easy to check out at 34 minutes. Amazon lists the CD as releasing in December for $24.95. I'm gonna have to shop around a bit, I think. But this one will be on my watch list.

[noddin0ff]

And in the "I wish I could justify blowing $119.00 on a box set" category...



I admire Mingus and his music and what's up on NPR is classic. Love it.

Available from Mosaic Records