Ekoostik Hookah - Dubbabuddah 1994

Since 1991, the celebratory jam sounds of Columbus, OH's Ekoostik Hookah has made them one of the finest Midwestern bands to emerge from the neo-hippie scene of the 1990s. Starting off performing at local open mic nights, frontman/keyboardist Dave Katz, guitarist Steve Sweney, bassist Cliff Starbuck, and guitarist/vocalist John Mullins decided that a career in music would be financially trying yet enriching because they had a special passion for it all. The group was instantly noticed at a local party, later gaining studio time to record their debut, Under Full Sail, in 1991. In 1993, drummer Eric Lanese joined the group, percussionist John Polansky joined in 1995, and singer/songwriter Ed McGee completed the Ekoostik Hookah lineup the next year.
Throughout the '90s, Ekoostik Hookah trudged throughout the U.S., playing to countless shows while molding their grassroots/jazz/blues organic sounds. A second album, which was titled Dubbabuddah (1994), focused more on the band's lengthy jams and sonic grooves, yet the 1996 release of the band's live album Ekoostik Hookah was more of an accurate depiction of their relentless rock & roll impeccability, the growl of performing in front of an audience, and the power they had as a live band. It's their laid-back nature, the mellow atmospheric body encased in each song, that makes Ekoostik Hookah as desirable as they already are. Studio efforts are obviously a different set for the group, but it's the down-home good time that cuts the hook every time. A third LP, Where the Fields Grow Green, was issued in 1998 and another live double disc,Sharp in the Flats, followed a year later. AMG.

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Buke and Gase - General Dome 2013

Very few bands are capable of completely encapsulating their sound with their writing credits quite likeBuke and Gase, who open the liner notes of General Dome, their second full-length outing, with the statement that "all songs improvised, organized, written, discussed, performed, discarded, recorded, and produced by Buke and Gase." This statement of purpose really captures the deconstructed and subsequently reconstructed nature of the band's lurching sound, which melds a host of fractured homemade instruments with the voice of Arone Dyer, whose vocals feel like warm honey flowing through the carefully arranged chaos created by the Brooklyn band. While it would be easy to go on endlessly about the myriad musical touchstones they pull into their work, what's really important is that their work...well...works. The way Buke and Gase pull together no wave's sense of texture with dance-punk's ear for rhythm is impressive enough, but the cohesion and approachability of General Domeare really what make the album. Buke and Gase have found a way to push melodic boundaries without sacrificing listenability, creating an album that offers a challenge to those willing to dive into its layered sound while providing a satisfyingly rhythmic experience for the casual listener to get lost in. That isn't to say that they've watered down their sound since 2010's Riposte, but more that they've achieved a more refined sense of balance, knowing exactly where and when to push the limits while still keeping the sound grounded enough that the listener is able to get lost in the song rather than the concept. AMG.

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Castanets - Texas Rose, The Thaw & The Beasts 2009

San Diego's Castanets borrow from country, folk, and experimental rock and turn them into a sound that's equally moody and inspiring. The band, which features a revolving cast of supportive musicians (including members from Pinback, Rocket from the Crypt, and Tristeza), centers on singer/songwriter Raymond Raposa, who explored the U.S. for four years via Greyhound bus after testing out of high school at age 15. This searching, traveling nature extends to his music, which he initially released as a series of CD-Rs. However, the Asthmatic Kitty label stepped in and released his first widely available album, Cathedral -- the bulk of which was recorded in a cabin in Northern California's woodlands -- in fall 2004. A year later, Raposa and company returned with First Light's Freeze. A period of acute depression followed, during whichRaposa was mugged outside of his home in Bedstuy, Brooklyn. In the Vines, Castanets' third release, was completed weeks after the mugging; appropriately dark (but earnest nevertheless), the album was released in October 2007. Recorded in three short weeks in a Nevada desert motel room (alone), the sparse and atmospheric City of Refuge arrived in 2008, followed by Texas Rose, the Thaw and the Beasts in 2009. In 2012, Raposa released Raymond Byron and the White Freighter on Asthmatic Kitty, and while technically a new band, it featured many of the same musicians associated withRaposa's Castanets recordings. Released in 2014, Decimation Blues found Raposa in a more experimental and varied territory than most of his other albums, dabbling with electronics and expanded instrumentation in the framework of his husky-throated Americana. AMG.

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Built To Spill - Keep It Like a Secret 1999

Perhaps realizing that their time on a major label was likely limited, Built to Spill made a gutsy choice for Keep It Like a Secret, their second album for Warner Brothers. They embraced the sounds of a big studio and focused their sound without sacrificing their fractured indie rock aesthetic. In a sense, this is Built to Spill's pop album: every song is direct and clean, without the long, cerebral jamming that characterized their earlier albums. That's not to say that the album is compromised -- the songwriting may be streamlined, but Doug Martsch now packs all of his twists, turns, and detours into dense, three-minute blasts. This approach, combined with the shiny sonic textures, makes Keep It Like a Secret the most immediate and, yes, accessible Built to Spill record, but they steadfastly open their music up and breathe the way, say, Pavement did on Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain or Brighten the Corners. Built to Spill still demand that listener meet them on their own terms -- these just happen to be the easiest terms to understand in their catalog. AMG.

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B Fachada - B Fachada 2009

An interesting album from a portuguese musician, it's a mixed of several music styles which digs both in the traditional and new rock/pop. Written by B Fachada except "responso" which is adapted from the priest sources (Vilar de Perdiz).
B Fachada played the guitars, pianos, the Rhodes, the hormones, the little piano, melodic synths and touched the bass drums, snare drums the, dishes, reco-reco, water bottles and percussion in general, played bass, scheduled a box of rhythms and sang leading voices and choirs. Tiago Sousa played the piano on "lack of love" and "your bad luck" and the hormones in the "responsorial" and "time to sing." Joao Viana (kindly provided by dixie gang) played the trumpet from "the beautiful Helena." Recommended.

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Dream Connaisseur - Smooth Sailing 2013

Done through a close knit of friends, this album was recorded in practice spaces and bed rooms to bring you a full length album made from passion not by big business. Special thanks to our friend, our producer David Mcdonald he put his blood and sweat into this as much as the band.
These songs reflect our journey from adolescence to adulthood telling stories of change, love, and the ups and downs of chasing our dream to be related to the soul.

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Hermeto Pascoal - Cérebro Magnético 1980

A self-taught musician, Hermeto Pascoal ascended from his humble upcountry origins to an international acknowledgment still unfair to his musical stature. Developing his ears from an early age at his grandfather's blacksmith shop, Pascoal used to pick up pieces of iron and hit them, trying to create music (not to emulate the harmonics of his father's eight-bass button accordion, as has been spread). This led to an unusual approach to music, where the tones themselves give a stronger conducting motif than chord connection, scales, or modes. His understanding of music as a vital force, emanating organically from everything in Earth, is reminiscent of Kepler's music of the spheres and conducted to eccentric performances and recordings with pigs, kettles, and anything at hand. He has also developed the Sound of the Aura concept, in which music is developed out of people's speech, traffic noise, and out of every possible source of sound. That didn't impede him from conquering the admiration of world-class musicians such as Miles Davis, for whom he recorded as instrumentalist and composer. John McLaughlin, Duke Pearson, Gil Evans, Berlin Symphony, Copenhagen Symphony, and many others played and recorded his compositions. He also recorded with Ron Carter, Alphonso Johnson, Tom Jobim, Cal Tjader, and several others. As a sideman, he recorded with Brazilians Aquilo del Nisso, Luiz Avellar, Maria Bethânia, Fagner, Galo Preto, Eduardo Gudin,Joyce, Edu Lobo, Elis Regina (including a live concert recorded at the Montreux Jazz Fest), Walter Santos, Mauro Senise, Robertinho Silva, Sivuca, Marcio Montarroyos, Taiguara, Sebastião Tapajós, and Geraldo Vandré, to name a few. Down Beat's Howard Mandel, wrote about him "as pan-global a leader as Sun Ra and as surefooted an individualist as Rahsaan Roland Kirk."
His father used to animate parties with an eight-bass button accordion. Beginning to play at local parties at 11, in three months' time, Pascoal advanced so much that he took his father's place because he became ashamed to play together with him. In 1950, his family moved to the capital Recife PE, and he debuted at radio stations in that city and around. In 1958, he moved to Rio, working with the Regional de Pernambuco do Pandeiro, Fafá Lemos Group, and Orquestra do Copinha. In 1961, he moved to São Paulo, playing in several nightclubs there. Already playing brass and wood instruments, he formed the group Som Quatro with Papudinho (trumpet), Dilsom (drums), and Azeitona (contrabaixo). With Sivuca, he had an accordion trio called O Mundo em Chamas. In 1964, he began a fertile association with Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira, joining his Sambrasa Trio (which also had Humberto Clayber on the double bass). His first recording was accompanying singer Walter Santos' LP Caminho in 1965, soon following the historical album No Fino da Bossa, Vol. 3, on which he backed Elis Regina on one track. The album was recorded in 1966 but was issued in 1994. Moreira was then in a band called Trio Novo which had guitarist Heraldo do Monte and bassist Teo de Barros; Pascoal joined them the next year and the group changed its name to Quarteto Novo. The first proponents of a Northeastern sound based on baião mixed with jazz improvisations, the group would be highly influential despite having recorded just one album, Quarteto Novo (Odeon, 1967). The album had Pascoal's first recorded composition, "O Ovo." In October of that year, the group accompanied Edu Lobo on "Ponteio" (Lobo/Capinam), the winning composition at TV Record's III FMPB (III Brazilian Popular Music Festival). In 1968, Pascoaltoured France. In 1970, he was invited by Miles Davis to record with him on the live album Live Evil. Davis also selected three of Pascoal's compositions for that album: "Little Church," "Nem Um Talvez," and "Selim." In fact, he selected 11 songs of Pascoal's material, but Pascoal wanted to release his solo album and let go only those two. As Miles had a habit of taking credit for tunes written by his groups' members, both were erroneously published under his name. Pascoal credits that to producer's tactics, not to Miles'. Pascoal's first solo LP, Hermeto (Cobblestone), was recorded in 1971 in New York and was produced by Ron Carter and Flora Purim. In that same year he, and Carter recorded another LP, with Pascoal's "O Gaio da Roseira," awarded as one of the best of the year by English critics.
In 1973, he toured through the U.S. and Mexico, recording in Brazil A Música Livre de Hermeto. By the Association of Critics of São Paulo (APCA), he was awarded as Best Soloist and, in the next year, Best Arranger. He toured the U.S. again in 1974 and had his song "Porco na Festa" awarded as Best Arrangement at the Globo Network's Festival Abertura. Recorded in 1976 with Sérgio Mendes and Brazil '77, he recording two more albums for Mendes in that period. His LP, Slaves Mass, released in 1977, also had Carter. In 1978, he recorded Zabumbê-Bum-Á. Since then, he has recorded 12 solo albums. His live performance at the 1979 Montreux Jazz Festival was recorded on a double LP and released through Warner: Hermeto Pascoal ao Vivo. In 1996, he was awarded with the Prêmio Sharp as Best Arranger for the Duo Fel CD Kids of Brazil. In the same year, he received the Prêmio Ary Barroso. His recordings as a sideman add to over 79 albums. In April 2000, Pascoal toured again through the U.S. and the Boston Globe, in a recent review of one of his American performances, commented: "With equal parts virtuosity and eccentricity, Pascoal's sextet gave the rare example of a band that actually earned its standing ovation." AMG.

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New Grass Revival - Hold to a Dream 1987

The band who originated the term "newgrass" continued their progressive bluegrass stylings on Hold to a Dream. As their work grew, the band explored new textures and instrumentation, including the use of fretless bass on Bela Fleck's jazz-inspired "Metric Lips" and the sea shanty roll of Pat Flynn's "I'll Take Tomorrow." Lead singer John Cowan is expressive but still relatively restrained (compared to some of his other recordings), and the interplay between Fleck's banjo and Sam Bush's fiddle or mandolin really sparks. While this album drifts closer to their contemporary country side than their bluegrass roots, it certainly makes for an entertaining listen. AMG.

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Railroad Earth - Amen Corner 2008

Railroad Earth made its name on the jam band circuit with their hard to classify amalgamation of bluegrass, folk, Celtic, country, jazz, and rock, although the band itself says they're acoustic rockers. There's no denying that they rock hard, but on Amen Corner they sound most like a country band with a bluegrass accent. Todd Sheaffer the band's lead singer and main songwriter has a pleasant country/folk/singer/songwriter voice and a knack for crafting subtle melodies that give the rest of the band -- Tim Carbone, fiddle, John Skehan, mandolin, Andy Goessling, guitar, banjo, dobro, mandolin, flute, penny whistle, and sax, Carey Harmon, drums and percussion, and standup bass man Johnny Grubb -- plenty of room to stretch out. Skehan's mandolin and Carbone's fiddle play a beautiful harmonic hook to open "The Forecast," a tune that talks about a coming storm but Skehan's mandolin sprinkles that track with flurries of shimmering, sunshiney notes. "All Alone" sounds a bit like the Bandwith a slow, mournful backbeat, lonesome banjo, and Sheaffer's keening vocal. It sounds like a prayer offered by a man with no hope of being answered by friend, lover or god. Goessling's dobro adds slow wailing notes to complement the music's bluesy, hopeless vibe. "You Never Know" sounds like the last song of the night at a dusty honky tonk full of lonely men. It has a sad singalong chorus and the playing remains understated until Carbone's fiddle and Sheaffer's wordless yodel drive it home with a jaunty, if desperate coda. "Been Down This Road Before" has a nice bouncy bluegrass feel to counter its melancholy melody with a lyric of lost love staggering through the drunken shadows of the early morning hours. "Right in Tune" is an ode to true love that doesn't ignore the bumps in the highway, but celebrates the feeling you get when the sun is bright and everything's in tune. Goessling's dobro andCarbone's fiddle lift your spirits with their breezy instrumental flights. The album's lone instrumental tune, "Lonecroft Ramble," is a bluegrass romp with a hint of Celtic soul that lets each member show off his licks, with Skehan's mandolin sounding especially tasty. AMG.

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Arthur Brown - Jam 1995

One of the most electrifying one-shot artists of the '60s, British singer Arthur Brown briefly set the charts alight in 1968, as well as thrilling audiences with his theatrical performances, which saw him wearing helmets of fire and outlandish costumes. His debut album was surely one of the most left-field commercial successes of the late '60s, if not of rock history. In addition to topping the British charts (and reaching number two in the U.S.) with his brilliantly demonic single "Fire," the self-proclaimed god of hellfire actually scored a Top Ten LP with his 1968 debut. Unveiling Brown's demented, fire-obsessed lyrical visions and swooping, theatrical vocals, it showcased his band's manic, agitated psychedelic sound, which was anchored by incendiary drumming, Pete Townshend's production, and an organist who could be best described as Jimmy Smith on acid. Brown's original band broke up in early 1969; in the early '70s he released several albums with Kingdom Come, which saw him pursuing a maddeningly obscure and less exciting brand of art rock. He recorded off and on after, with an additional flash of fame springing from his role as a priest in the film Tommy. AMG.

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Carl Palmer - Working Live, Vol. 1 (2002)

The progressive rock boom of the late '60s and early '70s produced its own pantheon of superstars --Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman at the keyboards, guitarists Robert Fripp and Bill Nelson, andChris Squire on the bass come to mind. Among the drummers in the field, Carl Palmer stands out as the best known of them all -- he has peers within the genre, to be sure, including Michael Giles, and at least one rival, Bill Bruford, who transcends the field, but Palmer is easily the biggest name, principally by virtue of his work with Emerson, Lake & Palmer, although he's had successes in other contexts as well.
Palmer was born in England's West Midlands in 1950, placing him among the youngest members of his generation of art rock musicians. He was at best an indifferent student within the context of formal education, a frequent truant who preferred to practice his drums, and he was serious enough to take -- and his parents sufficiently supportive to pay for -- lessons with a proper teacher in London. He reached his teens just as the Liverpool sound started sweeping the country; he was a fan of the Beatles, but already Palmer had musical idols far removed from anyone who had come out of the Cavern Club and other Merseyside venues, including Buddy Rich, whom he came to know personally (after brazenly showing up at his hotel on one occasion when the American legend was on tour in England), Philly Joe Jones, Art Blakey, Gene Krupa, and other figures from jazz and the big-band swing era. He also listened to a lot of R&B and was a formidable player when he joined his first professional group, originally known as the King Bees but later rechristened the Craig; a mod outfit par excellence, they were a solid R&B-based band, and on their first record, "I Must Be Mad" b/w "Suspense," Palmer -- all of 16 years old -- revealed a prowess that might have made Keith Moon(who was practically a drumming god moving among mortals), if he'd been listening, start keeping an ear pointed in his direction. Palmer also managed to intersect with the Merseybeat sound on at least one occasion that year, playing a session for a single with the black Liverpool singing group the Chants.
At that point in his life and career, Palmer could easily have gone the route of such players as Jimmy Page or fellow drummer Clem Cattini into work as a session musician, which was both lucrative and steady -- possibly even more so than lead guitarists, session drummers were essential to most producers' work when it came to recording new or relatively untried groups (especially on their singles) during this period, and Palmer could easily have put himself into that talent pipeline, alongside the likes of Cattini, Bobby Graham, John Bonham, et al. In an interview with Alan Robinson for the notes for the Do You Wanna Play, Carl?double-CD anthology (2001), however, Palmer recalled that his father saw more ahead of him in music than simply playing on sessions for other musicians, even for top fees, and urged him to resist that temptation and avoid that career choice. He found a steady gig easily enough with Chris Farlowe's backing band the Thunderbirds, playing alongside Albert Lee et al. for a couple of years, and followed this with a stint in the Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
Out of that, and his friendship with keyboard player Vincent Crane, he co-founded Atomic Rooster. The latter group, along with such outfits as the Nice, bridged the gap between psychedelia and progressive rock, sometimes with impressive results, and at times sounded almost like an Emerson, Lake & Palmer prototype. In the interview with Robinson, he recalled that it was while working withAtomic Rooster that Palmer realized that he liked working with small groups, preferably a trio -- he got to open up his playing and try doing some of the things that he'd long admired in the work of his idols like Buddy Rich and Art Blakey. In 1970, following his exit from Atomic Rooster, Palmer managed to cross paths with Greg Lake, a bassist/guitarist/singer who was a refugee from the first lineup of King Crimson, which had split up after (almost during) their first American tour, and Keith Emerson of the Nice, who had split with his group amid a chaotic year that saw the collapse of its label, Immediate Records. In a sense, Palmer was the vertex of the triangle formed by the three personalities, a Beatlesfan and a pop/rock listener like Lake, but also a jazz enthusiast like Emerson.
Within a year of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's debut in the summer of 1970, Palmer had become one of the most idolized rock drummers in the world, the group's debut album showcasing a level of speed, dexterity, and taste that was wholly removed from the kind of playing -- by the likes of Keith Moon in the Who, John Bonham in Led Zeppelin, orCharlie Watts in the Rolling Stones -- that had previously captured the ears and imagination of rock listeners. This was playing -- especially on the instrumental "Tank" and the extended bridge of "Take a Pebble" but also woven through "The Barbarian" -- of a kind with which jazz listeners were familiar, and classical audiences could understand, but it completely dazzled rock audiences. And when the group toured, and Palmer showed that he could also do this on-stage, he was suddenly a major lure for the trio's concerts. He also demonstrated precisely how formidable he could be on the creative side when it came to recording what became the second ELP album, Tarkus. The title track grew out of a piece of music that Palmer devised around an incredibly complex time signature andEmerson elaborated into a side-length conceptual piece that became a major part of their concert repertoire. He only had a couple of rivals during this period, Michael Giles, of the same first incarnation of King Crimson whence Lake had come, and Bill Bruford, of Yes and a slightly later version of King Crimson, and Palmer was more extroverted as a musician than either of them and enjoyed by far the biggest public reputation -- it wasn't unusual for his fans to compare him with his longtime idol Buddy Rich, with whose band he sometimes played.
Following a string of ever-more ambitious (some would say pretentious) albums, culminating with Works, which gavePalmer the chance to write and produce the music on a whole side of an LP, the group split up, principally due to the changing musical aspirations of its members, who wanted to express themselves independently of each other, and amid a precipitous decline in their popularity as the 1970s drew to a close. Palmer landed in PM, a band formed with guitarist/singer John Nitzinger, whose ranks also included Todd Cochran on keyboards and vocals, Barry Finnerty on guitar and vocals, and bassist/singer Erik Scott -- they were a decidedly more pop-oriented band, and cut a single album, 1:PM, for Ariola in 1980 before breaking up. He found considerably greater success in 1982 as a member of Asia, a supergroup whose other members came from the ranks of Yes and King Crimson. "Heat of the Moment" became their signature tune and a huge international hit; with a platinum record behind him for Asia's 1982 eponymous debut enabling him to step away from ELP in the public mind, Palmer was able to concentrate more on pure music-making in his next group, the 3 Project. The latter, dating from the late '80s, also included Keith Emerson but allowed both musicians a chance to work on music in a decidedly less formalistic, more popular context.

By the 1990s, however, he was back working with Emerson, Lake & Palmer (following a brief sojourn by his former bandmates in collaboration with Cozy Powell in Emerson, Lake & Powell. As of the early 21st century, and just into his fifties, Palmer probably enjoyed the highest level of musical respect of the three members of the trio, mostly by virtue of his sustained (and still overwhelming) virtuosity. AMG.

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