Sun City Girls - 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond the Rig Veda 1996

A great double-CD set from Sun City Girls covers the gamut of their far-reaching eclectic improvisation. Approaches ranging from Indian, surf, free-form noise, and late-night campfire folk make up 266 minutes of music which, in terms of their highly prolific output, is not an overdose of material. 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond the Big Veda contains more than a few moments of the splatter rock exemplified on their masterpiece, Torch of the Mystics, as well as '60s-era Indian film music, with Alan Bishop's vocals a helium-fueled, sarcastic jabber. On the second disc, they step out and serve "Ghost Ghat Trespass/Sussmeier" and "Theme From 'The Swaying Gardens of the Apocalypsia'," which encompass Indian raga drones and distorted electric guitar that touches on Keiji Haino's fuzz overload, and by the end, musique concrète tape collage puts the whole thing into a higher key. A highly recommended release in Sun City Girls' cannon, this collection ensures their position as true outsiders. AMG.

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The Geraldine Fibbers - What Part Of Get Thee Gone Don't You Understand 1997

The Geraldine Fibbers were the bluesy, country-tinged vehicle of singer/songwriter Carla Bozulich, a longtime veteran of the Southern California post-punk scene who previously tenured in Ethyl Meatplow and Neon Veins. After the former's 1993 breakup, Bozulich formed the Fibbers with guitarist Daniel Keenan, bassist William Tutton, violinist Jessy Greene, and drummer Kevin Fitzgerald, debuting the following year on the Sympathy for the Record Industry label with the EP Get Thee Gone. After signing to Virgin, the group issued 1995's acclaimed Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home; Butch, a more rock-oriented effort recorded with new guitarist Nels Cline, followed in 1997. AMG.

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Captain Luke & Cool John Ferguson - The Hamilton 2014

Captain Luke's voice is a marvel to behold. He doesn't have the best vocal chops, nor does he wail away like a pop star on The Voice. But this guy has an amazing ability to communicate the blues through song. And Cool John's guitar playing is the perfect counterpoint. Plus, the sound quality of the recording is impeccable. The selection of songs is great, a bunch of good blues tunes.

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Daniel Donato - Cosmic Country & Western Songs 2021

Donato, a 25-year-old Nashville native, has distilled those life lessons into his debut album, A Young Man’s Country, his proper introduction to the general musical audience. Recorded at Nashville’s Sound Emporium in a mere two days and produced by guitar-ace Robben Ford, the record weaves outlaw country, Grateful Dead-style Americana, and first-rate songwriting into a singular form Donato calls “21st-century cosmic country.” Incubated to the sounds of the Dead, educated by some of Nashville’s finest players, and having more than 2,000 shows under his belt and a social media presence, Daniel Donato is indeed a millennial whirligig of creative fire. He’s been dabbling in professional music since the age of 14 and yet he’s just getting started.

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Lloyd Miller - A Lifetime In Oriental Jazz 2009

Dr. Lloyd Miller is an American musician, multi-instrumentalist, educator, and multi-linguist. He has been fusing jazz with international folk and classical forms since the early 1960s. He can play more than 100 instruments. Though he began his professional career playing internationally with Don Ellis and Eddie Harris during the '50s, his interest in jazz led him to pianist Jef Gilson's Paris-based studio group, and he was featured on 1961's Jef Gilson Septet avec Lloyd Miller. He issued the 1968 classic Oriental Jazz while studying for his doctorate at Brigham Young University. During the 1970s, he studied in Tehran and roamed the Middle East making field recordings and collecting instruments. He hosted a television show there, booking American jazz and traditional Persian musicians. Miller returned to recording with Etruscan Impressions in 1993. In 2010, Strut released Lloyd Miller & The Heliocentrics. 2020's At the Ends of the World, on Fountain AVM, was followed by a retrospective of unissued material titled Orientations: 1960-2021. In 2009, England's Jazzman label issued A Lifetime in Oriental Jazz, an officially licensed compilation of Miller's various recordings from 1961 to 2005, though most of its selections were drawn from early-'60s sources. Then age 71, Miller was suddenly a sensation with English and European jazz fans and musicians, and American music collectors, too. AMG.

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Stepping Out - Another Concert Somewhere 2007

Stepping Out was a Danish band that took the stage along with their fellow countrymen Beefeaters, Alrune Rod, and Burning Red Ivanhoe on many occasions and festivals. All the heavy psychedelic/blues rock material on this CD released in 2007 was recorded live somewhere in Denmark between 1969 and 1970. 

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I Don't Know How But They Found Me - RazzMatazz 2020

The members of the vibrant dance-rock duo I Dont Know How But They Found Me (sometimes shortened to IDKHow or IDK) knew each other for years before they formed in secret in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2016. Late that year, they played a few shows in the Los Angeles area before word of the project eventually spread. The band released their first single, "Modern Day Cain," in August 2017, following it a month later with "Choke." In August 2018, they signed with Fearless Records and made their label debut with "Do It All the Time." That November, the 1981 EP arrived; it soon topped the Billboard Heatseeker chart and reached number 14 on the Billboard Rock Albums Chart. A year later, the duo returned with the holiday EP Christmas Drag, which featured a cover of Slade's "Merry Christmas Everybody." A pair of singles, "Leave Me Alone" and "Razzmatazz," arrived in 2020. Both tracks landed on IDKHow's debut, Razzmatazz, which was released in late 2020. Inspired by Bowie and Prince, the funky set also included the singles "New Invention" and "Lights Go Down." AMG.

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Blanche - Little Amber Bottles 2007

Gothic indie-country folk medicine show revivalists Blanche formed around frontman Dan Miller nearly a decade after he folded his earlier project, Goober & the Peas. Looking back to early American folk music as an influence, he assembled Blanche during informal living-room music sessions, with Miller's wife, Tracee, filling in on bass and vocals, Detroit area producer and multi-instrumentalist Dave Feeny on pedal steel, newcomer Lisa "Jaybird" Jannon on drums, and Patch Boyle on banjo and autoharp. Their independent release If We Can't Trust the Doctors caught the ear of V2 Records, which signed the band to their roster in early 2004. Their subsequent touring lineup was filled out by the addition of multi-instrumentalist Little Jack Lawrence, who filled in on banjo and autoharp in Boyle's absence. The band hopped down to Nashville in early 2005 to record the songs that would later appear on their first EP, What This Town Needs. It featured two tracks from Blanche's forthcoming full-length album, Little Amber Bottles, and was scheduled for release in the States in late October 2006, but when V2 folded, the album's release was delayed. Blanche ended up on the Loose imprint and Little Amber Bottles was released in the U.K. in the summer of 2007; the album was released in the U.S. later that year. AMG.

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The Kills - No Wow 2005

It's hard to believe that the Kills could sound even darker and more stripped-down than they did on Keep on Your Mean Side, but somehow they managed it: No Wow is one of the most highly concentrated rock albums of the 2000s, with a relentless focus and intensity that make Keep on Your Mean Side's more traditional ebb and flow feel downright slack. The duo's throbbing guitars, to-the-point rhythms, and dangerously sexy lyrics have been simmered down to their rawest essences, so much so that No Wow often feels like a stark, stylized line drawing of rock. Less is usually more for the Kills, though, and they sound more powerful, more confident, and more distinctive here than they did on their debut. "No Wow" itself is a fantastic opener, a powerful statement of curdled but still compelling love (or lust), the likes of which haven't been heard since Rid of Me. From there, the album doesn't let up until the sweetly narcotized "I Hate the Way You Love, Pt. 2." No Wow's variations on its sounds and themes may be monochromatic, but they're never monotonous. Wisely, the Kills have chosen to let their drum machine sound like a drum machine, giving songs like "Love Is a Deserter" a skeletal clatter for a backbone, and others, such as "The Good Ones" and "Sweet Cloud," a piston-like thrust. The magnificently taut "Dead Road 7" adds shades of menacing, mysterious country/blues storytelling to the band's songwriting, a direction they should pursue more. Though the album downplays the poppier moments that balanced Keep on Your Mean Side's onslaughts, No Wow's soft, slow songs are thrown into even sharper relief. "Rodeo Town" is one of the loveliest, and grittiest, ballads that the band has written, and "Ticket Man" ends the album on a hypnotic, reflective note. While Jamie Hince's vocals are also downplayed (and missed), it has to be said that Alison Mosshart does a compelling job of handling the lioness' share of the singing. No Wow is a tight, mean set of songs -- there's no room for punches to swing, but all of the shoving and grappling makes just as big an impact. AMG.

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KBB - Age Of Pain 2013

Japanese progressive rock group KBB began in 1992. The members of the group are Akihisa Tsuboy (violin and guitar), Gregory Suzuki (keys and theremin), Toshimitsu Takahashi (keyboards), Dani (bass), and Shirou Sugano (drums). Their debut album, Lost and Found, was released in 2000. Their fifth record "Age of Pain" was released in 2013. AMG. 

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Cactus - Tightrope 2021

A rock & roll supergroup featuring members of Vanilla Fudge, Mitch Ryder's Detroit Wheels, and Ted Nugent's Amboy Dukes, Cactus emerged in 1969 with a sound that combined blues, boogie, and hard rock. Between 1970 and 1972, they issued four full-length efforts, including their Billboard-charting eponymous debut, before ceasing operations after the release of 'Ot 'n' Sweaty. They re-formed in 2006 and unveiled Cactus V, their first studio album in 34 years. Since then, the band has continued to tour and record sporadically, with drummer Carmine Appice serving as the sole original member.

The plan was for the Vanilla Fudge rhythm section of bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice to join guitar god Jeff Beck and singer Rod Stewart. The project came undone when Beck had a motorcycle accident that incapacitated him for 18 months. Stewart then joined pal Ron Wood in the revamped Faces, leaving Bogert and Appice to find alternates for their dream band. They recruited guitarist Jim McCarty from Detroit Wheels, and singer Rusty Day from Amboy Dukes. Operating under the moniker Cactus, the band's assured 1970 self-titled debut included six original cuts and a pair of covers, one of which was a souped-up rendering of Mose Allison's "Parchman Farm." They applied the same formula to 1971's One Way... Or Another, laying down six hip-shaking originals along with fiery covers of Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" and Chuck Willis' "I Feel So Bad." The like-minded Restrictions arrived later that year and included a searing rendition of Willie Dixon's "Evil." McCarty and Day left the fold ahead of the release of the band's fourth long-player. The resulting 'Ot 'n' Sweaty, released in 1972, saw Appice and Bogert joined by guitarist Werner Fritzschings, keyboardist Duane Hitchings, and vocalist Peter French (ex-Leaf Hound and Atomic Rooster). Cactus disbanded shortly after the album's release. In June 2006, the band re-formed around a lineup consisting of original members Appice, Bogert, McCarty, and new vocalist and former Savoy Brown frontman Jimmy Kunes -- Rusty Day passed away in 1982. They issued their long-awaited fifth studio LP, the aptly named Cactus V, later that fall. Various lineup shifts preceded the release of 2016's Black Dawn, which featured McCarty, Appice, Kunes, and newcomers Pete Bremy and Randy Pratt. Founding member Tim Bogert died on January 13, 2021 after a long fight with cancer; he was 76 years old. Later that year Cactus released a new studio album, Tightrope. AMG.

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Baikida Carroll - Shadows and Reflections 1982

One of the better accompanists and section musicians, Baikida Carroll has added textures, colors, and bright solos to various free jazz ensembles and groups, among them the Black Artists' Group (BAG) in St. Louis. He's been an active composer, having written film soundtracks and scores and displayed a striking, full sound and solo approach. Carroll attended Southern Illinois University and the Armed Forces School of Music before directing the BAG's free jazz band. He went to Europe with other group members in the mid-'70s and recorded in Paris in 1974. Carroll's recorded with Oliver Lake, Michael Gregory Jackson, Muhal Richard Abrams, Jack DeJohnette, and David Murray in the '70s and '80s, as well as cutting a solo album in the late '70s and heading a combo in the early '80s. A 1994 session on Soul Note features Carroll in fine form with a quintet. Since that time, Carroll has kept busy performing and teaching and released the critically praised Marionettes on a High Wire on OmniTone in 2001. AMG.
 

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Black Country, New Road - For The First Time 2021

Black Country, New Road was formed in 2018 and quickly earned a reputation as a ferocious live act due to their startlingly unique combination of post-punk, free jazz, klezmer, and math rock, with frontman Isaac Wood's volatile rants immediately grabbing the audience's attention. Following numerous sold-out concerts, including collaborations with close friends and kindred spirits black midi, as well as two heavily hyped 7" singles that sold out instantaneously, the London-based septet signed with Ninja Tune and released their debut full-length in early 2021. While documenting the energy of the group's performances during the earliest years of their existence, the album displays a marked evolution from their beginning. Both of the band's initial singles have been reworked, and sound significantly less unhinged and sexually frustrated. "Athens, France" is reminiscent of Spiderland-esque post-hardcore, but with ethereal saxophone and glistening keyboards elevating the song's mood during its more reflective moments. The post-rock/prog epic "Sunglasses" stretches out to nearly ten minutes, slowly unfolding until a rush of words spill out, culminating with the phrase "the absolute pinnacle of British engineering." After a woozy, horn-smeared breakdown, the band shifts to a more insistent post-punk rhythm, as Wood nervously affirms his invincibility, dropping several names (Richard Hell, Scott Walker, Kanye) along the way. The more atmospheric "Track X" shows a more vulnerable and romantic side of the group, as Wood confesses "I got down on my knees, I told you I loved you in front of black midi" over a lovely post-minimalist arrangement for guitar, violin, and saxophone. The album has moments of sheer joy, too, particularly the festive, celebratory klezmer of the opening tune "Instrumental" and the rousing peaks of the emotional rollercoaster "Opus." Occasionally the vocals (and the constant name-dropping) become overbearing, but the musicianship is strong and adventurous, taking familiar instrumentation in unexpected directions, and Black Country, New Road are undeniably original. AMG.

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Cage the Elephant - Social Cues 2019

Considering how Cage the Elephant brought home the Best Rock Album Grammy for Tell Me I'm Pretty in 2017, it's a bit startling that its successor, Social Cues, abandons the rough-and-tumble aesthetic producer Dan Auerbach brought to the band. Auerbach helped Cage the Elephant emphasize the bash-around garage elements lurking within their music, a sensibility that is absent on Social Cues. CTE work with producer John Hill, who previously helmed albums by Florence + the Machine, for this 2019 album, but a better touchstone for what they're attempting to achieve is Beck, who appears on the single "Night Running" and joined the group on a co-headlining tour in support of the album. Particularly on Colors, the 2017 LP that snagged him a Grammy for Best Alternative Album, Beck specialized in a bright, vivid pan-cultural pop, echoes of which can be heard on Social Cues. Cage the Elephant also paints Social Cues with bold hues swiped from a primary palette, but they aren't especially interested in the here and now. While there may be some hints of modern flair on the margins -- they exhibit a particular fondness for drum machines -- Social Cues beats to a neon-lit pulse appropriated from the glory days of MTV. Such a bright glare evokes the '80s, but like all Cage the Elephant albums, Social Cues is a canny blend of familiar elements whose origin lies just out of reach. By making such a decisive shift in direction, CTE wind up dampening the squalls of White Stripes, Strokes, and Pixies that defined their first decade of records, but that change also emphasizes how the group is at heart pop-pastiche artists, favoring style and sound over a finely honed song. AMG.

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Dopapod - Never Odd or Even 2014

Dopapod is an American rock band from Boston, Massachusetts. The current lineup includes keyboardist/vocalist Eli Winderman, guitarist/vocalist Rob Compa, bassist Chuck Jones, drummer Neal “Fro” Evans, and lighting director Luke Stratton. Although classified as a jam band, Dopapod incorporates bits of funk, heavy metal, jazz fusion, and country. They have self-released five studio albums, and spend most of their time touring.

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